The Argosy

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''Laden with Golden Grain!'

THE

RGOSY.

EDITED BY

CHARLES W. WOOD.

VOLUME LIV.
July to December^ 1892.

RICHARD BENTLEY & SON,
S, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, LONDON, W.

A II rights reserved.

LONDON :
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, Limited,

STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

//

'^\

/\ D

Pi?
If

CONTENTS.

.^Guilty Silence. With Illustrations by M. L. Gow.

PAGE

Chap. XXVII. Luncheon at Mrs. Sutton's i

XXVIII. Hushed Up

O

XXIX. Mr. Bruhn's Ambition

12

XXX, Knottingly Beeches ....

15

XXXI. Yes, or No ? .

21

XXXII. The Stolen Casket .

89

XXXIII. Mr. Dawkins's Morning Call

91

XXXIV. The Sword of Damocles .

97

XXXV. Esther's Confession .

103

XXXVI. What Silas Said and Did .

177

XXXVII. Trix in her New Home .

1S5

XXXVIII. A Little Cloud .

191

XXXIX. Margaret's Return

265

XL. Missing . . . • •

. 274

XLI. A Friend in Need .

. 282

XLII. EveWarriner ....

• 353

XLIII. Found

. 360

XLIV. The Green Bottle on the Top Shelf

364

XLV. Margaret and Esther .

. 441

XLVI. Silas Ringe's Return .

• 445

XL VII. The Reel Wound Up

. 453

In the Lotus-Land. By Charles W. Wood, F.R.G.S. With

Illustrations 42, 131, ^^9, 302, 49°

Another Ted. By Evelyn C. Farrington .
Aunt Orsola ......

Balcony at Lucerne, A. By W. W. Fenn

By Chance. By Lilian Street .

Dalesmere of Eyam, The. By Christian Burke

False Alarm, A

First Lodger, The. By MiNNiE Douglas .
Ghost of St. Elspeth, The ....

Hard Man's Charity, A. By L. Jackson
Hotel du Cheval Blanc, The ....

In a Cathedral ......

Jenny Wren. By Ada M. Trotter .
Loyal Heart, A. By F. M. F. Skene .
Manager's Safe, The. By George Fosbery .

289

53§

434
562

463
233
347
516

77
412

532
64
25, 112
. 326

IV

Contents.

Mrs. Pickering's Vanity. By Ina Garvey .
Old Man's Darling, An. By C. J. Langston
Old Uncle Abe. By Ada M. Trotter
Senorita's Ghost, The ......

Sociability of Squirrels. By ROSA MACKENZIE KETTLE

Tale of a Wedding Cake, A

Tower by the Sea, The. By A. Beresford .

" Treasures ".......

Voyage across the World^ A. By E. C. KiTTON .
What a Naughty Boy did. By MINNIE DOUGLAS .
When the Century was Young ....

Wild Gilroys, The. By RosA Mackenzie Kettle

PACK

473
431
419

390

379
171
258

155
199

PO£TRV.

Amata and Benevolentia. By Emma Rhodes

That Evensong of Long Ago. By Alexander Lamont

Parted. By SYDNEY GREY

Song of the Seasons. By E. Nesbit .....
Nineteen ..........

Once Only. By OSBERT H. HOWARTH

At Set of Sun

Alone. By E. Nesbit

A Peasant Heroine. By Christian Burke ....
A Respite ..........

Oceano Nox. By C. E. Meetkerke

" The Harvest Now is Gathered In." By Helen Marion BURNSIDE 430

Transplanted. By C. E. Meetkerke 489

A Brother of Pity. By Christian Burke 522

Christmas Carol . . . . . . . . . -531

The Miracle of Music. By Isabella Fyvie Mayo . . . 537

Disillusion ........... 568

63
170
176
232
254
267
301
325
344

389
410

ILL USTRA TIONS.

By M. L. Gow.

" * Thai's just what I^can't for the life of me recollect,' answered Miss Ivimpey ;

and then she burst into tears."
" The bell was rung, I and Esther herself answered it."
" She came a step'or two nearer,'and took one of his hands in both hers."
" * Mrs. Clemsonihas told me all about your illness,' said Mrs. Warriner."
**Out of the room, [along theicorridor, and upstairs, slowly, mechanically, as a

womamin a dream."
"Esther was summoned."

'* Until the miracle of music works
Under the Master's hands."

Illustrations to "iln the Lotus-Land."

THE ARGOSY.

JULY, i8g2.

A GUILTY SILENCE.

CHAPTER XXVII.

LUNCHEON AT MRS. SUTTON's.

^"\7HEN Margaret Davenant had once familiarised her mind with
^ ^ any fact, and had satisfied herself that, however unpleasant
.such fact might be, it could not in any way be avoided, she accepted
the consequences of it as a matter of course, and was in nowise given
to useless repining, or, as Mrs. Sutton would have put it, to " crying
over spilt milk." So, in the present case, when the first natural
burst of regret for the loss of that fortune which she had so fondly
hoped her sister would share had in some measure spent its force,
she decided at once, with a good grace, to accept things as they were,
and neither by hint, word, nor look to let any living soul know what
a prize she had played for and lost.

Margaret's ambitious dream had vanished like a wreath of smoke in
the wind, but Trix might be humbly happy, yet — that and nothing
more.

Next morning Margaret found it impossible to settle down quietly
to her duties in the school ; there was a restlessness upon her which
she could not overcome. Hugh had said something about this
Mr. Peterson insisting that the matter of the missing letter should be
investigated by the postal authorities. What if such investigation
should take place ? Well, even in such case what had she to fear ?
Nothing — absolutely nothing. No human eye had seen her take the
letter ; it was a crime that rested between herself and her own con-
science ; a crime that in this world could never be brought home to
her. Yet, despite this assurance, repeated to herself again and again,
she was seized at intervals with a strange, nervous trembling, too
slight to be observable by any one but herself, but very distressing
while it lasted, which she could conquer and put down for a time only
by an intense effort of will. The inaction of the class-room seemed
to stifle her. She paused in the midst of correcting a French exercise,

VOL. LIV. B

2 A Guilty Silence.

and thought, " Perhaps even now Mr. Peterson is at the post office."
She felt that she could rest in ignorance no longer ; information of
some sort she must have. So she laid down her pen, and making a
hurried excuse to Miss Easterbrook, she put on her bonnet and shawl,
and set out for the town. " I will go to Mrs. Sutton," she thought ;
" she will know everything, and will tell me everything without
waiting to be questioned."

Mrs. Sutton, standing at her parlour window, saw Margaret coming
down the street, and hastened to open the door for her. Margaret's
face was, perhaps, a shade paler and more worn than common, but to
all outward seeming she was as quietly self-possessed, as serenely un-
ruffled, as she always was in the eyes of the world.

" Good morning, my dear Miss Davenant. You are as welcome as
the flowers in May," said the old lady heartily. " I was dreaming
about you only last night. I thought I saw you — , but, there, I won't
tell you anything about it, for I dare say you look upon dreams
as so much rubbish. Nay, but you must take off your things and
stay a bit, now you are here. That's right. Now, do make yourself
at home. One of Hugh's books that, which he has left here and
forgotten. For my part, I'm thankful to say that I've never read
many books since I grew up, or I should hardly be the woman I am.
Two pins crossed, lying on the floor, — that's unlucky ; we shall hear
bad news before long ; and, indeed, a coffin leapt out of the fire last

night, which But here am I, running on, and forgetting that I

am expecting both Hugh and his cousin Hugo in a few minutes to
luncheon, as they call it, but it seems to me neither more nor less than
a cold dinner. Nay, my dear Miss Davenant, you must not stir.
They will both be very glad to see you ; and, indeed, here they are,
so that it's no use your running away. Bless me, if there isn't three
of them ! "

Three of them there certainly were ; to wit, Hugh Randolph, his
cousin Hugo, and Mr. Peterson, the Australian lawyer. Margaret's
heart beat a little faster as she thought of the ordeal that was probably
before her ; but she set her firm, white teeth together, and steadied
her nerves by a supreme effort of will to meet with outward calmness
whatever might happen next.

To Hugo Randolph and Mr. Peterson Margaret was presented in
due form ; and Mrs. Sutton, in a loud aside, did not fail to inform all
whom it might concern that Miss Davenant was own sister to the
young lady Hugh was about to marry. Much as she hungered for
information, Margaret made as though she would fain have gone,
feeling that the party was, in a certain sense, a family one, and that
Mr. Hugo Randolph might not care to have his affairs discussed
before a stranger. But none of them would hear of her going ; and
Hugo himself vowed that if she did not stay to grace their luncheon,
he would have neither bit nor sup in Helsingham, but pack up his
portmanteau, and start by the first train.

A Gidlty Silence. 3

" You must really permit me to look upon you in the light of a
relative," he said ; " and as it is not every day that one has so
charming an addition to one's family, one cannot do better than
improve such rare occasions to the utmost ; so do, pray, let me
persuade you to stay."

Margaret gave him one of her rare smiles, and, slipping off her
gloves, she sat down at table without more ado.

He might have been one of the Anakim, this Hugo Randolph, so
much did he tower above the ordinary race of mortals. A big man,
bearded and bronzed ; tanned with the wind and sun and rain of
many seasons ; dressed in the rough, free-and-easy costume of your
true fisherman, to whom a fashionable cut is of less consequence than
roomy comfort as regards his habiliments ; a sportsman who made
sport the business of his life, and who, even while he was talking to
Margaret, was fingering a bulky pocket-book stuffed with hooks and
flies and lines, and other piscatorial adjuncts. Between this huge
disciple of the gentle art and the lawyer fresh from the antipodes, the
contrast was a striking one. A little man, light-complexioned, with
sandy hair and a straggling sandy beard ; brisk and alert to a painful
degree ; wanting in repose, and the quiet grace of inaction ; with
something dry and acrid about him, as though all the sweet juices of
his life had dried up under the hot sun of his country ; such was
Mr. Samuel Peterson, of Melbourne, Australia.

" I can hardly believe, Hugo, that this good fortune of yours is
real," said Mrs. Sutton. " It seems too much like a dream."

"And I dare say you find it quite as difficult to believe that I
deserve it ? "

" That I do, boy," answered the outspoken old woman. " Not
that I'm sorry you've got it ; but still, as you say, what have you done
to deserve it ? "

" Pardon me. Granny, but I did not say anything of the kind,"
answered Hugo, laughingly. " No such stupid idea ever entered my
head ; for whatever other people may think of my merits, I consider
that all the good fortune which may accrue to me will have been fully
deserved, were it merely from the fact that my life has been a
thoroughly consistent one."

" A consistently lazy one," said Mrs. Sutton, with an irate shake of
the cap ribbons.

" Precisely so : a consistently lazy one," returned Hugo blandly.
" Hugh, if you have another wing to spare, I'll take it. This dry sherry,
Mr. Peterson, is one of those institutions of the old country which
you gentlemen from beyond the seas cannot reasonably hope to equal
for several centuries to come. Yes, Granny dear, your Hugo prides
himself on having been consistently lazy from his youth upwards — that
is to say, as far as the hard facts of life would permit him to be so. If,
in the earlier part of his career, circumstances obliged him to work for
his daily bread, he did it under protest and against his will, and took

B 2

4 A Guilty Silence.

the earliest possible opportunity of shirking so disagreeable a necessity.
Hugh, here, will be my witness that the very morning I received the
news that my poor old Aunt Barbara had left me two hundred
and fifty pounds a year for life, I entered into negotiation with him
for the disposal of my Helsingham practice."

" A practice which you had shamefully neglected," interposed
Mrs. Sutton.

" Not a doubt of it. Granny," answered Hugo cheerfully. " But,
then, you see, my tastes never did lie in that direction. Ah, what a
light heart was mine the morning I found myself a free man, with
drugs and gallipots cast behind me for ever ! Two-fifty a year ! Five
pounds a week and no work to do for it ! What might not a man of
my simple tastes effect with such a sweet little income ? "

" Yes, and a pretty use you've put it to," said Mrs. Sutton. " Never
done a decent day's work since it came to you."

" Not in your meaning of the term, I am happy to think," answered
Hugo. " But many a hard day's work with rod and gun — many a
glorious day on lake and moor — in token of which I now drink to the
memory of my dear old Aunt."

*' Let us hope, at all events, that you will make better use of the
fortune that is about to come to you than you have done of poor
Aunt Bab's, who never thought her hard-saved bit of money would be
squandered as you have squandered it."

" Can you guess. Granny, what momentous question I have been
debating in my mind from the moment Mr. Peterson here told me
of my good fortune ? But no, it is not likely that you can. The
question is this : Whether I shall buy a yacht and go to Norway, or
whether I shall go to Africa to shoot lions. It's too late in the
season, I'm afraid, for the former ; but lions, I suppose, may be
bagged all the year round."

"You are a perfect Pagan, Hugo Randolph, neither more nor
less ; and you'll come to a bad ending one of these days, mark my
words if you don't."

" If I don't, I will ; but if I do, I sha'n't be able. You look
mystified, and well you may. Let us change the subject." Then,
turning to Margaret, he added : " I suppose. Miss Davenant, that you
have heard about this strange affair of the missing letter? My new
friend, Mr. Peterson, to whom I am really much indebted, looks upon
the matter in a far more serious light than I am inclined to do. I
say that the letter must have been lost in transit, and that after so
long a time, especially as the matter to which it referred has now been
put right, it is hardly worth inquiring into. Mr. Peterson says — "

" That on public grounds and in a purely business point of view,"
interposed Mr. Peterson, in a harsh, high-pitched voice, " the loss of the
letter ought to be made the subject of strict inquiry. Unless we do
our best to nip such transactions in the bud, who can tell when or
where they will cease ? "

A Guilty Silence, 5

" Who, indeed ? " asked Hugo, with mock solemnity. " But Miss
Davenant has not yet favoured us with her opinion. How say you,
my lud, is this matter of the missing letter worth further inquiry, or
were it wiser to draw^ a veil over it and relegate it to the limbo
of things out-worn and forgotten ? "

Over Margaret's white face a wintry smile flickered fitfully, as she
bent her dark eyes now on Hugo and now on the lawyer. That by
her, of all people in the world, such a question should have to be
answ^ered ! Just for one moment the impulse was strong upon her to
stand up before them all, and say, " Trouble yourselves no further ;
it was I who took the letter." Just for one moment she thought
thus ; the next, a tiny imp seemed to be whispering in her ear,
" Oh, what pretty sport you are having ! Isn't it nice to hoodwink
these respectable nobodies ? For all you pretend to be so virtuous,
you can't help enjoying it."

"It is hardly fair, Mr. Randolph," said Margaret, with a smile and
a little shrug, " to put such a question to a woman ; it seems to me a
man's business entirely. But since you have appealed to me, it is of
course necessary that I should do my best to keep up the traditional
reputation of our sex for superior wisdom. Accordingly, my opinion is
this : that if you, Mr. Randolph, do not choose to consider yourself
aggrieved, and are quite willing to let the matter sleep, I cannot see
the necessity for any one to take up the cudgels in defence of a
grievance that has no existence."

" Argued like a second Portia ! " exclaimed Hugo enthusiastically.

" Argued like a true woman ! " said Mr. Peterson with a little sneer.
" Ingenuous, no doubt ; and touching, as indicative of a profound
belief in the innocence of human nature ; but far from convincing to
a plain business man like me. Still, as you say, Miss Davenant, if
Mr. Randolph does not choose to consider himself aggrieved, the
ground is at once cut from under my feet, and there is no course left
me, save to bow to your united decision."

" Bravo ! Spoken like a man ! " said Hugo, with a slap of his big
hand on the table.

Margaret's heart gave a great throb of relief and gratitude. What
happiness ! The whole wretched affair was about to be hushed up
and forgotten.

But her gratitude proved to be premature ; for Mrs. Sutton, who
had not spoken for what to her seemed a very long time, took
advantage of the lull for the enunciation of her opinion on the point
under discussion, which opinion was pretty sure to be in direct
opposition to that of some of the company ; for Mrs, Sutton held
contradiction to be the salt of conversation. " Well, I for one can't
see but what Mr. Peterson is just right about this letter," she exclaimed
with much energy. " If folks' letters are to be opened and read in a
free country, one might as well live under the Emperor of Chiney, or
any other tyrant ; and, indeed, I've heard say that when you miss a

6 A Guilty Silence.

letter, you have only to write to the head man in London, and
he'll have it hunted up for you, and sent down specially with his
compliments, which is all right and proper ; and why you couldn't do
so in the present case, I, for one, can't imagine."

" But don't you see. Granny," said Hugo, " that nobody knew till
yesterday that the letter was missing ; and as Mr. Peterson himself
was the writer of the letter, and brought the news which it contained,
there is no occasion for our making any bother about it."

" News or no news," said the old lady irately, " I know that if they
had defrauded me out of a letter, I wouldn't have sat down under the
loss of it as quietly as you have done. But you always were a bit of
a milksop, Hugo, my boy, for all you are such a big fellow."

" May be so, Granny, may be so," said Hugo equably.

As for Doctor Hugh, he had been devoting himself to the quiet
discussion of his luncheon, and to a silent but not unamused observa-
tion of what was going on around him ; but now that the conversation
seemed to be growing slightly acrimonious, he decided that it was
high time to end the dispute either one way or the other. " Opinion
being equally divided," he said, " Miss Davenant and Hugo taking
one side of the question, and Aunty and Mr. Peterson the opposite,
the casting vote evidently rests with this child. I beg, therefore, that
you will all adopt my decision as the final one, and "

" There's somebody just outside who can settle it a good deal
better than you can, Hugh," burst in Mrs. Sutton, " and that's
Dorcas Ivimpey, who has just stepped into the grocer's shop on the
other side of the way. If a foreign letter was ever received by her for
anybody in Helsingham, I'll warrant she'll remember it. Her memory
is just wonderful for such things. Suppose I send over, and ask her
to step up ? "

"The very thing!" said Hugo. "Nothing could be better. I
remember Miss Ivimpey very well, and intended calling to see both
her and her brother before leaving the town. Many's the good day's
fishing Charley Ivimpey and I have had together. He used to be the
best hand at throwing a fly within a dozen miles of Helsingham."

Mrs. Sutton's servant was at once sent over the way with a message
for Miss Ivimpey, and a few minutes later the worthy postmistress was
ushered into the room.

CHAPTER XXVm.

HUSHED UP.

Margaret's heart felt as though it were being grasped by a hand of
ice as Miss Ivimpey came into the room. Her reason kept whispering
to her that she had nothing to fear ; that her secret was her own, and
could in nowise become known unless she betrayed it of her own free
will. Yet, despite all this, her soul felt sick almost unto death, and

A Guilty Silence. 7

she was filled with vague apprehensions of some unknown danger,
which seemed to her frighted imagination all the more terrible in that
she could not even guess how or whence it might come.

Miss Ivimpey came limping into the room, but paused in dismay
when she saw the number of strange faces by which she was
surrounded ; for, being without her spectacles, she did not immedi-
ately recognise the familiar features of Miss Davenant and Dr.
Randolph. These two, however, quickly made themselves known to
her. Then, Mrs. Sutton introduced Mr. Peterson as a gentleman from
Australia ; and last of all, Hugo strode up to her, and putting out a
big paw, asked her whether she had quite forgotten her old sweet-
heart, the " Fishing Doctor ; " and further, wished to know whether
her affections were still disengaged. She recognised him in a
moment, and shook him heartily by the hand ; and responded to his
banter by telling him that she had been secretly married six years
before, and that her husband was a black drummer, and big enough
to thrash two such infants as him, if he treated her with the slightest
impertinence.

Mrs. Sutton, ever hospitably inclined, pressed the postmistress
to partake of lunch ; but Miss Ivimpey was one of that class who
hke best to do their eating furtively, and in secret as it were, as
though there was something almost criminal in the act ; and are
much put out if, by any chance, they come under the operation of a
pair of strange eyes during meal-time. It is not, therefore, to be
wondered at that, in the present case, she should strenuously decline
her friend's pressing offers. In other respects she was quite at her
ease, and was presently in the midst of an animated conversation
with Hugo respecting her brother Charley, and his achievements with
a certain fly which he had lately invented. At length Hugh looked
at his watch, and declared that his time was nearly up ; and this
brought to Hugo's mind the fact that he had quite lost sight of the
special reason on account of which Miss Ivimpey had been summoned.
*' Wait a minute. Monsieur le Docteur," he said. " I had almost
forgotten all about that trumpery business of the missing letter ; but
as our friend Mr. Peterson is evidently troubled in his mind about it,
we may as well try to have it settled at once and for ever."

Mr. Peterson, with an uneasy cough, edged his chair a little nearer
Miss Ivimpey, and fingered a tiny memorandum-book in his waistcoat
pocket, with the evident intention of taking notes on the slightest
provocation.

" I am sorry. Miss Ivimpey," began Hugo, " to have to intrude a
matter of business — for such, I suppose, I must call it — on your
attention at a moment like the present ; but I hope you will allow the
little time I have at my disposal (I leave here by the four p.m. train)
to plead as my excuse."

" Surely, Mr. Hugo, no apology is needed from you for doing
anything of the kind," said Miss Ivimpey. " I shall be glad to

8 A Guilty Silence.

answer any questions, and give you any information as far as it lies in"
my power to do so."

" Thanks. I know your obliging disposition of old," answered
Hugo. " My catechism shall be as brief as possible," he went on.
" Oblige me by rummaging in your memory, and try whether you can
recollect receiving, on or about the — on or about what ? " turning to
Mr. Peterson.

"The eighteenth of June. Mail reached London previous day,'"
said the lawyer, with a sort of sweet alacrity ; and under cover of this
remark, he whipped his pencil and memorandum-book out of his
pocket, and proceeded to take stenographic notes of the questions
and answers which followed.

" Receiving on or about the eighteenth of June," resumed Hugo^
" a foreign letter, written on the usual thin foreign paper, bearing the
postmark of Melbourne, Australia, and addressed to my cousin, Dr,
Hugh Randolph. Have you any recollection of such document ? "

Miss Ivimpey's face turned red, and from that to white, and thenj
back to red again, while Hugo was putting his question. So agitated
was she, in fact, that for a moment or two she seemed unable to
reply ; but her air, when she did so, was rather that of a person
troubled in her mind than of one criminally guilty.

" Mr. Hugo Randolph, — Sir," she said, " why should I wish to
deceive you ? I do remember such a letter as the one you speak of."

Marked sensation among the auditory. Mr. Peterson having taken
a note, bit the end of his pencil viciously, and waited to hear more.

" Do you remember what became of the letter in question ? "'
asked Hugo.

" That's just what I can't for the life of me recollect," answered
Miss Ivimpey ; and then she burst into tears.

" Nay, nay, that will never do ! " said Hugo soothingly. " There
is no need for you to distress yourself thus. Remember that you
are among friends — among people who would be sorry to annoy you
in any way. I am asking about this letter merely out of curiosity to
ascertain the reason of its non-arrival. It may ease your mind to
know that the letter itself was really of very little consequence.'*
Mr. Peterson looked disgusted.

" Now that you have asked me about it, I won't try to disguise
anything from you," resumed Miss Ivimpey, with tearful eyes. " I
know that I was to blame, but I'll tell you all about it as straight-
forwardly as I can. I have a distinct recollection of receiving the letter
you speak of. It was, as you say, from Australia : I recollect the
postmark : and written on foreign paper ; and was addressed to Mr.
Hugh Randolph, surgeon, Helsingham, England. It did not come to
me in the London bag, as it ought to have done, but in the Barrowfield
bag, and too late for the afternoon delivery. The London people
must have put it into the Barrowfield bag in mistake ; at least, I
remember that was the conclusion I came to at the time. Seeing

A Guilty Silence. 9

that it was a foreign letter, and thinking that it might be of importance,
I laid it on one side, in order to have it delivered specially that
evening, instead of keeping it over for the morning delivery, which, in
the ordinary course of things, I should have done. Old Jacob, the
postman, generally looks in about nine o'clock of an evening to assist
with the night-mail, and I intended him to take it as soon as he
should come. By-and-by in came Miss Davenant ; and it is fortunate
that she happens to be here this morning, because she can bear me
out in what I say ; and she stopped awhile. Then, in came another
lady friend, who stayed to supper ; and what with one thing and another,
I clean forgot all about the Australian letter till next morning, just as
old Jacob had got back from his first round. Something brought it
all at once to my mind, and at that moment you might have knocked
me down with a feather. Well, I went at once to the pigeon-hole in
which I had left the letter overnight, never doubting but I should find
it there. But it was not there ; neither could I find it anywhere else,
though I sought for it high and low, and in every nook and corner I
could think of. Charles said that he had not seen it ; and old Jacobs
who might just as well be without a memory for any use he makes of
the one he has, could not recollect whether he had seen it or not. He
had delivered two letters at Dr. Randolph's that morning, but whether
one of them was a foreign letter, he was quite helpless to recollect.
I was terribly distressed, you may be sure, for such a thing had never
happened before during all the years I had been in the Helsingham
post-office. As I was not quite certain whether the letter had been
delivered or not, I was afraid to make any inquiry about it ; and was
in mortal dread every day for a long time lest Dr. Randolph should
send to ask after it. As I gather from what you, Mr. Hugo, have
said, that the letter was never delivered, there is only one way in
which I can account for its disappearance. As Miss Davenant will,
no doubt, remember — for the circumstance to which I allude took
place while she was in conversation with me in the office — when I
was in the act of lighting the gas, my foot slipped ; and in trying tO'
save myself, my dress swept a whole heap of unsorted letters off the
counter on to the floor. I can only conclude that the Australian
letter was one of the number ; and that, somehow or other, though I
confess I can't see how, it must have slipped under the woodwork,
and escaped my observation when I picked up the others. I was:
glad, Mr. Hugo, to hear you say that the letter was not of great
consequence, for I can assure you the loss of it has lain heavily on
my conscience, and been the cause of many a sleepless night."

As Miss Ivimpey brought her narration to an end, she seemed
inclined to lapse into tears again, but Hugo did his best, in his hearts-
way, to cheer her up, and to medicine the wound which her nice sense
of duty had made her suffer from so acutely.

"A most candid and straightforward explanation," said Hugo
warmly ; " and one with which we are all perfectly satisfied ! Even

lO A Guilty Silence.

our slightly cantankerous friend, Mr. Peterson, can hardly be otherwise,
I think."

Mr. Peterson, with his eye on his note-book, smiled rather loftily.
" Oh, perfectly satisfied ! " he said. " But may I be permitted to put
one or two queries to Miss Ivimpey ? "

" Half a hundred if you like," answered Miss Ivimpey. " Most
happy, I'm sure."

Hugo seemed about to interpose ; but, on second thoughts, he drew
back with a shrug, and began to busy himself with his book of hooks
and flies.

" You told us just now, I think," began Mr. Peterson, with what he
considered an eminently judicial air, "that Miss Davenant was with
you in your private office on the same evening that the letter disap-
peared so mysteriously ? "

" Precisely so. Miss Davenant was with me for more than an
hour."

" And that, still later on, if I understand you rightly, another friend
of yours came into the office to see you ? "

" No, sir, there you are mistaken. I said that another friend of
mine came in to see me, but I said nothing about her coming into the
office ; indeed, she never set foot in it, but was shown direct into the
drawing-room."

" Then, in point of fact," resumed Mr. Peterson, " beyond the
members of your own family and Miss Davenant, who will, I hope,
excuse me for mixing up her name in this business, no one set foot in
your private office on the evening in question ? "

" No one unconnected with the business of the office," answered
Miss Ivimpey, " except Miss Davenant and her maid, a girl w^hose
name I forget."

" Oh, oh ! " said the lawyer, with a chuckle of intense satisfaction.
" A girl whose name you forget, eh ? Come, come. Miss Ivimpey, we
are getting on by degrees ! And may I ask you, pray, whether you are
in the habit of allowing people whose names you don't know to have
the enfrie to your private office ? "

In the eagerness of pursuit Mr. Peterson had slightly forgotten him-
self, and had overstepped the bounds of discretion.

" Sir, I will have no more of this ! " cried Hugo Randolph, with an
emphatic blow of his fist on the table. " You seem to forget that
Miss Ivimpey is an old and valued friend of mine. Your style of
cross-questioning is an insult, not merely to her, but to Miss Davenant
also. It is almost equivalent to an insinuation that you suspect
either one or the other of those ladies of having stolen your trumpery
letter."

" There, Mr. Randolph, you do me an injustice. No such sus-
picion ever entered my head," said Mr. Peterson, flushing painfully
under Hugo's words. " I was merely pursuing the inquiry in the
ordinary way of my profession, and, as I think I may say, in the

A Guilty Silence. 1 1

interest of the community at large. The few questions I thought it
necessary to put have already elicited the fact of another person
having been in the office on the evening in question, who might "

" I don't care if there were a hundred people there ! " burst in Hugo
hotly. " That is entirely Miss Ivimpey's business, and concerns
neither you nor me. Besides, if half the town had been there, what
possible motive could any one have had for taking the letter ? "

" It might have been taken under the impression that it contained
money," said the lawyer.

" It might, and it might not," said Hugo. " If one of the results
of your profession, Mr. Peterson, is to beget a universal suspicion of
your fellow-creatures, then am I thankful that I was not bred a
lawyer."

"You have not seen quite so much of the dark side of human
nature as I have, Mr. Randolph, or you would scarcely be as credu-
lous as you are."

^' jEn revanche^ I have, perhaps, seen more of the bright side of
human nature, and that has taught me the wisdom of charity."

" As regards what was said respecting my maid, Esther Sarel," said
Miss Davenant, in her clear, cold tones, " you will, perhaps allow me
a word of explanation."

" No explanation whatever is needed. Miss Davenant," said Hugo
warmly.

" Still, if you will allow me," said Margaret. " Merely this : the
girl called to see me while I was at the post-office on a matter of
business. She was certainly not there more than five minutes alto-
gether. She was standing close to me the whole of the time, and it
was quite impossible for her to have taken either a letter or any other
article without my knowledge. Further, I will pledge my word as
to the girl's thorough honesty and trustworthiness ; and, without
considering the question of want of motive, I am perfectly convinced
that the missing letter was not taken by Esther Sarel."

Hugo rose with a pained look on his handsome, bronzed face. " I
hope those are the last w^ords we shall hear about this wretched
business,", he said. " Mr. Peterson, if you attach the least value to my
consideration, you will never let me hear another word about the
missing letter. Miss Ivimpey, I am more grieved than I can tell you
that the subject was ever broached in your presence, and I am certain
that all here are perfectly convinced that the loss of the letter was the
result of a pure accident, and that not even a shadow of blame can by
any possibility attach to you in the matter. Tell Charley that I shall
call and see him this afternoon before leaving."

Mr, Peterson, finding himself in the evening with an hour to spare
before the departure of the train, sauntered into the smoking-room of
the " Royal," bent on enjoying a weed. He found only one gentle-
man there, with whom he soon entered into conversation, and whom

12 A Guilty Silence.

he was not long in discovering to be Mr. Dawkins, the chief constable
of Helsingham. Here was an opportunity for disburdening his mind
such as must by no means be overlooked ! The matter of the missing
letter still remained on the lawyer's conscience, and he had just been
longing for a sympathetic bosom into which he could pour his doubts
and suspicions without running the risk of being snubbed as that
odious Hugo Randolph had snubbed him. So the law}^er and the
constable's heads were laid together, and an hour later Mr. Peterson
took his departure, considerably comforted in his mind. Mr. Dawkins
accompanied him to the train, and the constable's last words to the
lawyer were : " There may be nothing in it, you know ; but I'll keep
my eyes open and drop you a line in case of anything turning up."

CHAPTER XXIX.

MR. BRUHN'S ambition.

It was with a feeling of almost solemn thankfulness that Margaret
Davenant took her way back to Irongate House. She had been
standing on the edge of a great peril, — on the verge of a pit invisible
to all eyes but her own ; but she had skirted it in safety, had left it
behind her ; and now, thank Heaven ! the ground beneath her feet
was firm and solid, and her heart was filled with silent gratitude.

Of Hugo Randolph she saw no more. He proceeded on his
journey northward the same afternoon, after arranging with Mr. Peterson
to meet that gentleman in London a few days later. Hugo the
equable seemed in nowise elated by his unexpected good fortune.
He saw his way now to fulfilling the two great longings of his life of
which he had made mention to Mrs. Sutton ; to wit, the shooting of
lions in Algeria, and a trip to Norway in a yacht of his own ; but
beyond these two trifles, and the exchange of the m'n o?'dinai're, to
which the slenderness of his purse had hitherto condemned him, for
claret of a choicer vintage, his simple mode of life would know no
change. That he did not quite forget his Helsingham friends was
proved a little while later by his sending Trix a set of handsome
emerald and diamond ornaments as a wedding present, accompanied
by a humorous little note addressed to " The fair Cousin whom I
have never seen." With Trix's present came a ring set with opals
and brilliants, of which he respectfully requested Miss Davenant's
acceptance.

But there were others besides Hugo Randolph by whom our sweet
Trix was not forgotten. A few evenings before the day fixed for the
wedding Mr. Bruhn rode up to Irongate House, and sent in his card
to Miss Davenant ; and on being shown into the room where she and
Trix were busily engaged with their needles, he announced himself as
the bearer of a wedding present from his sister, Mrs. Cardale.
Thereupon he placed in Trix's hands a tiny casket, which, on being

A Guilty Silence. ' 13

opened, was found to contain an exquisite little watch and chain, over
which Trix at once went off into superlatives.

Mr. Bruhn had just returned from a short visit to the Continent,
and Margaret was eager in her inquiries after Mrs. Cardale. " Her
last words to me were these," said Mr. Bruhn : " ' Tell Margaret
Davenant that she must be ill for a month, and come out and join
me. Tell her that I have no one here to argue with me or contradict
me ; no one with whom to discuss the last number of the ' Revue ' ;
no one whose playing is worth listening to : tell her that if she does
not come soon, I shall begin to write poetry in sheer despair.' "

" Mrs. Cardale knows too well the impossibility of what she asks,"
said Margaret, with a smile and a sigh. " Like the galley-slave of old,
I am chained to my oar ; and however lightly the servitude may
weigh upon me, still, this is my spot, and here I must stay."

" Yes, it's just Etta all over," said Mr. Bruhn ; " to think that
everybody's duties and obligations should be subsidiary to her whims
and wishes. She herself has been such a gad-about ever since she
was a child, that she is quite incompetent to appreciate the quiet
pleasures of our stay-at-home, humdrum English life."

" I will not hear even a whisper of slander against the absent," said
Margaret, with a smile.

" A deeper frilling round this sleeve, dear, would be a decided
improvement," said Miss Easterbrook, as she burst suddenly into the
room. Mr. Bruhn, sitting close behind the door, was unperceived by
her for the moment.

" Minerva never wore frills, my dear Miss Easterbrook ; of that we
may be very certain," said Mr. Bruhn, as he rose with extended hand ;
for between him and the preceptress of Irongate House there was an
acquaintanceship of long standing ; " and I am surprised to find one
of her daughters unbending to the frivolities of modern fashion."

" Her ladyship lived before the age of French bonnets and dis-
tended skirts," answered Miss Easterbrook ; " ere ' Le Follet ' had
become an institution, and while Glenfield starch was still a dream of
the future ; otherwise there is no knowing how many varieties of
costume she might have introduced among the Olympians. Poor old
lady ! I dare say she was dreadfully moped at times in the company
of those stupid gods and goddesses, whose education, in most cases,
had been dreadfully neglected while they were young."

" It is hurtful to my feelings," said Mr. Bruhn, " to hear the friends
of my school-days spoken of in that irreverent style. With your per-
mission, therefore, I will retire."

" I must have come like a bird of ill-omen to frighten you away so
soon," said Miss Easterbrook. " Only stay a little while, and I will
initiate you into the mysteries of back-stitch and herring-bone ; I will
teach you how to hem your own handkerchiefs and darn your own
socks ; and now that you are about to become a legislator, every
scrap of knowledge ought to be prized by you."

14 A Guilty Silence.

" Mr. Bruhn in Parliament ! " said Margaret with genuine surprise.
" Yes, dear. Have you not seen to-day's ' Helsingham
Gazette ' ? " said Miss Easterbrook. " But I forgot : local news-
papers are beneath your notice. There, however, is the announce-
ment ; having read it twice over I know it by heart. ' We are in-
formed, on excellent authority, that our eminent townsman, Mr. Robert
Bruhn, has agreed to allow his name to be put forward as a candi-
date at the ensuing borough election. The political principles of Mr.
Bruhn are too well known to need recapitulation in these columns.' "

" The fellow who wrote that paragraph," said Mr. Bruhn, " knows a
great deal more about me than I do myself. In the first place, I
am certainly not aware that I agreed to allow my name to be brought
forward as a candidate, although I may have been solicited with that
view. In the second place, my political opinions are by no means so
well known to myself as they seem to be to my newspaper friend. I
have an awkward faculty for seeing both sides of a question, which
not infrequently disturbs the precision of a man's views. But, then,
what is more easy for one who writes in utter ignorance than to say,
' The political opinions of Mr. Blank are too well known to need
recapitulation ' ? "

" Mr. Bruhn is only trifling with us," said Margaret quietly. " He
is like a bashful maiden of seventeen, who will and who will not ;
who means her No to be taken as Yes, and who would think her
wooer a very stupid fellow indeed if he put too literal a construction
upon her timid negatives."

" Even you can misjudge me," said Mr. Bruhn, turning on
Margaret a little reproachfully. " Your simile is a very pretty one,
but totally inapplicable in the present case. No," he resumed, more
earnestly than he had yet spoken, " the offer comes to me too late in
life ; I have no longer any ambition left to shine in public. Yet, I
may here confess that when I was a young man just setting out in life,
I looked forward to a seat in Parliament as the Mussulman looks
forward to one day visiting Mecca. It was the corner-stone of my
ambition — the great purpose of my life — a prize worth struggling for.
It was a pleasant dream while it lasted ; but it fell away from me like
a worn-out garment the day I buried my wife and child in one grave,
and found myself left shivering and alone to begin the world afresh ;
and I have never had the heart since that time to pick up the ragged
old thing and try it on again."

" But all that happened a long, long time ago," said Margaret ; " and
sorrow knows no surer anodynes than the gentle touch of Time's
merciful finger, and the exercise of a healthy and honest ambition."

" Sorrow, in the ordinary sense of the word, I know no longer,"
said Mr. Bruhn ; " only a sweet and chastened memory, that seems to
draw my erring feet heavenward when they might otherwise go astray.
But a little worm has been preying too long at the core of the fruit
for it ever to be sound again."

A Guilty Silence. 15

" What would this world be like," urged Margaret, " if all of us who
have given pledges to eternity were to allow the smarts of our wounds
to stay with us for ever ? "

" If you were to preach till the millennium, my dear Miss Davenant,
you could not destroy the individuality of suffering," said Mr. Bruhn.
" We must each of us carry our own burden our own way. The great
sorrow of my life has left me neither a hermit nor a misanthrope ; it
has merely rendered me disinclined to move out of the every-day
groove in which I have travelled my mill-horse round for so many
years, and which I have come at last to enjoy in a quiet fashion that
feels no need of a change. I can enjoy my horse, and my book, and
my pipe, and the society of a few choice friends ; I can enjoy my
daily drudgery at the mill, tedious though it may seem to an outsider ;
and latterly, by way of mild dissipation, and as a means of taking me
more out of myself, I have begun to dip my finger in the municipal
pie, and to study the question of borough reform."

" And are the triumphs of a Little Pedlington like ours really
sufficient to satisfy your ambition ? " asked Margaret.

" Yes, really sufficient," answered Mr. Bruhn ; " although it by no
means follows that I attach any particular value to such triumphs.
Cannot you see that they serve to give a variety to my life just
sufficient to keep me off the edge of ennui ? And that is all I care for
nowadays."

He rose to go, and as his hand touched that of Beatrice at parting,
he slipped a little packet into it. " With the giver's best wishes for
your future health and happiness," he said ; and next moment he was
gone. The packet on being opened was found to contain a handsome
and costly bracelet.

CHAPTER XXX.

KNOTTINGLY BEECHES.

The day fixed for Trix's wedding was drawing on apace, and in
Irongate House the preparations for the important ceremony went
forward (sub rosa) as merrily as such preparations always ought to do.
Miss Easterbrook chuckled to herself to think how capitally the secret
had been kept, and that the wedding-day would come and go almost
without her giddy fledglings being aware that it differed in any way
from the ordinary days of school-girl existence. Beyond the
immediate circle of those concerned, Mrs. Greene, the housekeeper,
was the only person to whom she had spoken of it, and only to her
under the seal of secrecy. But Mrs. Greene had seen no harm in
mentioning the fact to Madame Schmidt, the German governess —
always under the aforesaid seal of secrecy — and the secret once known
to Madame Schmidt, soon became the common property of the
establishment.

When the eventful morning really did arrive, if Miss Easterbrook

1 6 A Guilty Silence.

thought to deceive her young ladies with the transparent excuse that
both she and Miss Davenant were called away on most important
business, she was miserably mistaken. Authentic information had
been furnished as to the precise hour the carriages would leave
Irongate House on their way to church. Exactly five minutes before
that time, at a signal given by Captain Lucy Dampier in one
room, and by I>ieutenant Sarah Stevens in another, the girls rose in a
body, and, to the intense astonishment of Mademoiselle Perrin and
Madame Schmidt, who had been left in charge, they proceeded to form
in procession, two abreast, and began to defile out of the class-rooms.

" Vat you about, young ladies ? " cried the French teacher, planting
herself full in the way of the first battalion. " To your lessons this
moment ! "

" Now, Perrin, don't you interfere, or it will be worse for you ! "
cried Captain Dampier sternly. " Stand on one side, I say, or I will
give instructions to have you locked up in the book-room."

Miss Dampier was the eldest girl in the school, and a great heiress
to boot, and her imperious words cowed the poor teacher. She stood
meekly on one side, and let the procession go past without further
protest, while Schmidt subsided into tears and a helpless wringing of
hands. So the procession went on its way steadily, defiling down the
old oak staircase, and out by the side door, and round by the screen
of laurels, and halted at the main entrance to Irongate House, half on
one side and half on the other. Then, in obedience to the word of
command, the lesser girls took up a position in front, and the taller
ones in the rear, so that all could see equally well. Scarcely had the
rear rank formed in close order when the bridal party from the house
— Miss Easterbrook, Margaret, Mr. Davenant, and the bride, together
with two young ladies (names not recorded) who acted as bridesmaids
— on their way to the carriages, drawn up a few yards away. Miss
Easterbrook was literally too astounded to speak. She turned first red
and then white — that is to say, as white as her rubicund visage could
become on so short a notice — and then hurried into the carriage to
hide her confusion. Just as the bride came stepping out, leaning
on her father's arm, sweet little Minna Ashleigh, the fairy of the school,
attired for the occasion in her best bib and tucker, carrying an elegant
bouquet, was thrust forward ; and with a pretty little courtesy, held out
her bunch of flowers for the bride's acceptance, saying, as she did so,
" From the young ladies of Irongate House with their love and
best wishes."

Trix took the flowers, and stooped and kissed the giver, but just
then her heart was so full that she could not say a word in reply.

Much waving of handkerchiefs, and quite a storm of good wishes,
followed the bride as she stepped into the carriage ; after which Miss
Easterbrook's pupils went decorously back to their duties in the
class-room.

At the wedding-breakfast, which was given by Mrs. Sutton at her

A Guilty Silence. 17

house, Mr. Davenant made a highly-ornate speech, into which he in-
troduced several choice flowers of rhetoric, culled from a work of the
Johnsonian period, by which he set great store. It was a speech that
was much admired by all the ladies present (except, perhaps, by Mar-
garet), and Miss Easterbrook was affected by it to tears. More tears
were shed, we may be sure, when the hour for parting came, and bride
and bridegroom set out for a six weeks' tour on the Continent, Hugh's
patients, meanwhile, being looked after by a brother practitioner, by
whom he had acted a similar part only a year previously.

A week before the wedding-day, Charlotte Heme left Helsingham
on a visit to an old schoolfellow, with the promise that she would
come back before the return of Hugh and his wife, and, in conjunction
with Mrs. Sutton, have everything in readiness for their reception.

The social timepiece can point to few times and seasons more flat
and insipid than the half-dozen hours immediately following a
wedding-breakfast. The pretty little drama ends with the departure
of the happy couple and the dispersion of the wedding-guests ; and
you are thrown on your own resources for the remainder of a day
round which a festive odour seems still to cling, so that you cannot
make up your mind to tone it down to the prosaic level of your
ordinary workaday life, the result of your wish to keep up the character
of the day being generally a wretched anticlimax. To Margaret
Davenant, however, this day of her sister's marriage had not seemed
to wear a particularly festive aspect. Although her scheme for
winning Trix a rich husband had miscarried, she yet could not help
rejoicing in Trix's marriage — rejoicing that she had found a man so
good and true for her husband, and that she was rescued from the
life of anxious drudgery that had been her own portion for so many
years. But there was another side to the question. She had but
just learnt to know how sweet it was to have her sister with her when
she was taken from her. Trix could never again be to her exactly
what she had been. A new home, with new duties and obligations,
awaited her sister ; and the old sweet intimacy between them could
never again be renewed in all its completeness.

This melancholy mood was still upon her when she took her way
homeward from the railway-station on the afternoon of the wedding-
day. She had been to see Mr. Davenant off by train, and now that he
was gone, she felt even more lonely than before. She felt as if a long
country walk would do her good ; so, instead of going back through
the town, she skirted its northern suburb, taking a footpath through
the fields, and crossing the river by the long wooden bridge, and then
up the hill to the left, not two hundred yards from Brook Lodge. A
short half-mile further brought her to Knottingly Beeches, one of the
prettiest walks near Helsingham. It was merely a winding woodland
path that skirted the summit of a ridge of rising ground, with here and
there a patch of timber cut away so as to afford a view of the town
and of the pretty valley in which it was built, and, beyond that, of a

VOL. LIV. c

1 8 A Guilty Silence.

swelling range of pasture-lands that swept up to the horizon and shut
out all the world beyond.

When Margaret had reached the highest point, she sat down on a
rustic seat to rest and admire the view. All the gentle influences of
nature seemed to be abroad, and little by little the sadness was drawn
out of Margaret's heart and a feeling of chastened content took its
place. If happiness, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, could
never be hers, at least the paths of life were not quite barren to her
footsteps. Affection and Friendship walked with her side by side, and
Duty, severely beautiful, pointed out the way she must go. Eros, the
darling boy, would pass her by and know her not ; Love's fine frenzy
would be to her as a madman's dream ; for her there would be no
voyaging out into unknown seas, with danger of heartwreck and
cozenage of brightest hopes ; but, instead, the shaded garden-paths of
Pallas Athene, and quiet anchorage where the storms of life could
harm her not.

Margaret was still deep in these musings, and had become utterly
oblivious of time and place, when she was suddenly startled by some
one speaking close behind her.

" Miss Davenant ! "

Mr. Bruhn's voice ! And there Mr. Bruhn was in person, with
frank smile and outstretched hand, when she rose in some confusion
to greet him. They shook hands cordially. Margaret inquired the
last news respecting her friend Mrs. Cardale, and before she was aware
that she had stirred from the spot where Mr. Bruhn had come upon
her, she found herself walking slowly along the footpath that led
in the direction of Irongate House, which was, however, fully two
miles away, with that gentleman by her side.

" This is a favourite haunt of mine," said Mr. Bruhn, as they
sauntered along together ; " but my visits to it are generally made by
starlight or moonlight. Whenever the weather is at all endurable, I
like a short ramble and a cigar before turning in for the night ; and,
at such a time, this is at once the loveliest and the most unfrequented
spot within an easy walk of my house."

" I have been here but three or four times before," said Margaret.
" My usual walk is at the opposite side of the town, and it was more
by accident than design that I took this road to-day."

" A happy accident, seeing that to it I owe the pleasure of meeting
you. But this is your sister's wedding-day ; is it not ? "

" It is. I parted from her only two hours ago. She is on her way
to Paris by this time."

" Although she has not been long with you, yet to lose her will
seem to leave a gap in your life for some time to come."

" Yes. To-day has seemed anything rather than a day of rejoicing
to me. But I try to forget my own melancholy in looking forward to
the happy future which I trust is in store for her."

" She deserves to be happy," said Mr. Bruhn, " and that she will be

A Guilty Silence. 19

so, I do not doubt. There is not a better fellow breathing than Hugh
Randolph, nor a man whom I esteem more highly."

There were tears in Margaret's dark eyes as she turned them full
on Mr. Bruhn with a look that showed how deeply his words had
touched her. For a little while they walked on without speaking.

All at once Margaret turned on Mr. Bruhn with a glad, bright look
on her face, such as he had rarely seen there before. A grave
serenity, overlaid by a faint, indefinable melancholy, was Margaret's
prevailing characteristic ; but that sudden flush of gladness, like the
lifting of a rain-cloud behind which the sun is shining, betrayed for a
moment the radiant depths beyond.

" We are to see you in Parliament, after all, Mr. Bruhn ! " she said.
*' I felt so glad this morning when the news was told me."

" Your news is news to me," said Mr. Bruhn. " It is true that I
have, at length, agreed to contest the borough at the forthcoming
election ; but it by no means follows that I shall be the successful
candidate. But granting for the moment that I were secure of my
seat, why should that fact be a source of pleasure to you ? "

Margaret's colour deepened visibly at the question, but she replied
with a sweet, grave earnestness of manner that could hardly fail to
impress the man to whom she spoke. " The news I heard this
morning," she said, " was a source of pleasure to me, because I
believe that in Parliament you will be in your proper sphere. I
hardly know how it happens, Mr. Bruhn, that I venture to talk to you
at all on these matters, which we poor women are supposed to be
utterly ignorant of. But I am merely saying to you what I have said
more than once to Mrs. Cardale. It seems to me that the ambition
of a man such as you are can never be satisfied in a place like
Helsingham. To be the head of an extensive business establishment,
to take your share of municipal duties and dignities, are, doubtless,
worthy triumphs in their way ; but yours is an intellect that requires
a larger arena for its display, and opponents more worthy of your
strength and skill. If I have spoken too freely, I can only trust to
your kindness to forgive me."

"You have not spoken too freely," said Mr. Bruhn emphatically.
*' Be assured that I esteem you none the less for what you have said
to-day. It is true that of late the promptings of an ambition that I
thought had died within me long years ago have made themselves felt.
Sometimes I resolve to give way to them ; more often I ask myself
cut hojio 1 — shrug my shoulders, light my cigar, and turn a deaf ear
to the voices that try to beguile me from the quiet, unambitious path
I have trodden for so many years."

" But you have at length cast mistrust to the winds, and agreed to
run the race that is set before you ? " said Margaret.

" Yes, I have so agreed," said Mr. Bruhn. "But, Margaret — " (it
was the first time he had called her by her Christian name, and the
implied familiarity caused Miss Davenant to shrink involuntarily a

c 2

20 A Guilty Silence.

foot or two further away from the speaker). " But, ^Margaret,'"' he
repeated, " that race, as it seems to me, will be a difficult one to run
alone. Will you lighten it for me ? Will you become ray wife ? "

If an earthquake had caused the ground to open at the feet of
]\Iargaret Davenant, she could not have been more surprised than she
was at hearing these words. " Oh, Mr. Bruhn, you cannot surely be
in earnest ! " she said.

" But I am most terribly in earnest," answered Mr. Bruhn. " In
all my life I was never more sincere than I am at this moment.
This is no mere idle fancy of mine. For months past it has been the
fixed thought of my mind to say what I have said to-day ; and I
should have spoken to you long ago only that I was determined to
prove to myself by waiting that my liking, my affection for you was no
mere passing whim of a day or an hour."

" I find it difficult to believe that I am really here," murmured
Margaret, "and that you are really addressing such words to me."

" You are really here, and I, Robert Bruhn, am truly and in all
sincerity asking you, Margaret Davenant, to become my wife. I ask
you to join your life to mine ; to share my heart and my home. I
shall love you very dearly (indeed, I do that already), not, perhaps,
with the wild, madcap love of youth, but with that quiet devotion
which maturer years should bring if our lives have not been wholly
misspent ; and I will try my best to make you happy."

" What can I say ? " said Margaret. " Indeed, I know not what

to say. I fully appreciate the honour you have done me, but •''

and Margaret paused.

" You must not talk like that," said Mr. Bruhn gently, " or I shall
begin to fear for the success of my suit. But I will not press you for
an immediate answer. Take what time you please to think over my
proposal, and then write me a single word — Yes or No. Only, it
must not — it must not be the latter."

" You are very, very kind ! " said Margaret, and then she sighed,
" But what would Mrs. Cardale think ? and your fashionable friends ? "

" My fashionable friends may go to Jericho ! They will not hinder
me from making myself happy my own way. And as for Etta, — I
have a letter from her in my pocket applauding me to the echo for
what I am now doing. Etta has known my thoughts and feelings in
this matter all along She will welcome you as a sister with more
than an ordinary sister's love."

Again Margaret sighed. Tears were in her eyes, and when she
tried to speak she could not. They had left Knottingly Beeches
some distance behind, and had walked slowly through the fields
beyond it, and had now reached the stile which gave admission into
the high-road. There, as by mutual consent, they halted. Mr.
Bruhn's way lay back again through the fields, Margaret's lay along
the high-road in the direction of Irongate House.

A moment or two they stood thus without speaking. Margaret's

A Guilty Silence. 21

<;yes were bent on the ground, Mr. Bruhn's were bent on her. At
length Margaret raised her eyes to his, and held out her hand, while
her lips shaped an inaudible Good-bye.

" You will write to me, will you not ? " asked Mr. Bruhn, as he
took her hand, and after holding it for an instant in his, raised it
respectfully to his lips.

" Yes, I will write to you," said Margaret. With that she let her
veil drop over her face, turned and crossed the stile, and went on her
way home.

CHAPTER XXXI.

YES, OR NO?

Margaret Davenant walked home as a woman in a dream.
There was a vague dread upon her that all that had happened to her
during the last half-hour was a mere delusion of her own disordered
brain. It was almost too incredible for belief that after all these
years of toil and neglect and penury, she should be asked to become
the wife of a man like Robert Bruhn. Her deep thankfulness — as
yet it could not be called happiness — was so extreme that she felt she
must seek the relief of tears. On reaching home she made her way
unnoticed to her own room, and there, on her knees, she cried for a
long time, and so relieved her overburdened heart. Then, still
kneeling, she fell asleep, with her head resting against a corner of the
bed, — for the day's excitement had utterly worn her out, — and so
slept for above an hour. Then she rose quietly, and bathed her
hands and face, and went down into the class-room, and heard the
young ladies their lessons, and set them their tasks for the morrow.
There was about her this afternoon a sort of solemn elation which
shone through all she said and did.

After a solitary cup of tea in her own room Margaret went out into
the shrubbery. The huge clumps of evergreens looked dim and
solemn in the growing dusk. Margaret threaded her way through them
till she reached her favourite walk under the sheltering southern wall.
As she went along she plucked a late rose that had been making love
to one of the stars, and imprisoned it in the bosom of her dress. To
her pleased fancy it seemed as if the gathered flower was emblematic
of the sweetness and beauty that were henceforth to gather round her
life and fill her days with a gladness such as they had never known
before. As yet she had not stated positively to herself whether her
answer should be Yes, or No ; but all her thoughts and imaginings
kinged on the supposition of her reply being in the affirmative.

From the moment of her introduction to Mr. Bruhn, Margaret had
felt a strong liking and respect for him, but now she felt something
that was warmer than either. Only three hours had come and gone
since he had asked her to become his wife, yet already he was nearer
and dearer to her than all the world besides, — her father and Trix

22 A Guilty Silence.

-excepted ; her love for them nothing could change. But this was an
altogether different sentiment from love of father or sister, this delicious
insidious something that was stealing like a subtle poison through her
veins.

" Surely I am not going to fall in love at my time of life ! " said
Margaret to herself. Then she smelled at her rose, kissed it, and
smiled.

To and fro she paced the garden walk till long after the autumn
twilight had deepened into night. Through the midst of her musings
respecting this new future that might be her own for a word, one
thought would come uppermost with troublesome frequency, let her
strive as she would to crush it low down into her heart ; and that
thought was, " If I marry Mr. Bruhn, I shall never know poverty
again," Had her life depended on it, she could not have utterly
stifled this thought. As the mistress of Brook Lodge, and the wife of
the richest man in Helsingham, what a very different personage she
would be from the shabby-genteel Miss Davenant of Irongate House !
She and Poverty had been too well acquainted for many years for her
to be frightened at his sour visage ; but, for all that, her longings,
tastes, and instincts were for the luxuries and refinements of life, —
for those refinements which wealth alone can purchase. Living as
she was now, and as she had lived since she was eighteen years old,
she was like a plant pining neglected in some unsheltered nook,
whose proper place would have been to deck some gay parterre and
revel in the sun. At length the opportunity was offered her of
entering that sphere which by birth, tastes, and education she was so
well fitted to adorn, and, with a thrill of pride in her power, she felt
that she could adorn it. Her father, too ! It would be within her
power, as it would be her happiness, to lift him out of his present
condition of genteel pauperism, and surround his declining years with
some of those elegant comforts which no one was better fitted than he
to appreciate and enjoy. It was only that very morning that she,
Margaret, had been debating in her own mind whether she could
afford herself a new shawl, and in a few weeks from that time she
might, were she so willed, be riding in her own carriage, and have a
dozen servants at her beck and call. It was like a pretty story out of
the Arabian Nights which one reads with a smile, knowing that it can
in nowise be true.

But all her musings of this evening were pervaded by a!faint chilling
sense of her own unworthiness. Had she not committed a crime
which, if it were known to Islr. Bruhn, \vould at once change his
affection into loathing, and cause him to shun her as though she were
a moral leper whom it would be pollution to touch ? Was not that
accursed stolen letter in her possession at that very moment ? And
knowing this, could she, with unsullied conscience, go and wed this
true and honourable gentleman, who believed in her as implicitly as he
believed in his own sister ? ^^'ith an unsullied conscience, as she at

A Guilty Silence. 23

once confessed, she could not do this thing. But, for all that, she
would do it ; she would be Mrs. Robert Bruhn, of Brook Lodge !
The one crime of her life had harmed no one but herself; it had
utterly failed to compass the end intended ; to her its fruit had been
nothing but despair, tears, and repentance ; but now that it was
so completely a thing of the past, so entirely her own secret that the
world could never, by any possibility, become cognizant of it, would it
not be the height of folly to allow its grim shadow — and it was nothing
more tangible than a shadow — to frighten her back from the threshold
of that pleasant future which had opened so unexpectedly before her ?
" Folly, indeed ! " she said to herself aloud, with a shrug of the
shoulders. " Is my whole future to be influenced by the mistake of a
moment ? Am I to refrain from plucking the golden apple that hangs
within reach of my hand because of the tiny speck at its core ? Not so."
Next morning Margaret despatched a little note to Mr. Bruhn — a
very brief note indeed — which, without decisively answering that
gentleman's question either one way or the other, was not without a
certain hopeful significance, which the recipient of it did not fail to
recognize. Its contents were simply —

" Come. Seven p.m.

" Margaret."

As seven o'clock was striking, Mr. Bruhn reached the top of the
rising ground on which Irongate House was situated, and the same
moment Miss Davenant issued from the gates. After shaking hands,
Mr. Bruhn offered his arm, which Margaret took, and together they
turned up a quiet country lane leading out of the main road, which
might have been a dozen miles from any town, so utterly deserted was
it in the dusk of this pleasant September evening. A sense of happy
trust and confidence shed itself like balm over the heart of Margaret,
as her hand rested lightly within the stalwart arm of the man who had
asked her to become his wife. She had been so accustomed all her
life to independent action, to think and decide everything without
consulting any one, that this new sense of leaning upon another, so
dear to the feminine mind — of having some one in whom she could
confide and on whose stronger will she could safely rely was, to her,
simply delicious. Now, too, as she glanced quietly up at her com-
panion, she seemed to see him with new eyes. His hair and beard
might be slightly grizzled ; that fact only added to the nobility of his
appearance. But what a fine chivalric head was his ! — a head that
seemed made for casque or morion, or that would have served admir-
ably as a model for that of Sir Bedivere or some other gentle Knight
of the Table Round.

" I am here at your bidding," said Mr. Bruhn, as they reached the
friendly shade of overarching boughs, which made the twilight deeper,
and seemed to draw them closer to each other. " You have some-
thing to say to me."

24 A Guilty Silence.

" I have," said Margaret.

" Something you wish me to hear before you decide a certam
question which I put to you yesterday evening. I judged as much
from your note. Once upon a time then "

And Mr. Bruhn paused, and, in the pause, Margaret felt her hand
pressed gently and reassuringly, as if to give her courage.

" Once upon a time," began Margaret, " there was a poor gentleman
named Davenant, who had two daughters, the elder of whom was
asked in marriage by a prince of a neighbouring country. Before
agreeing to accept the offer of this prince she thought it only right that
he should know certain particulars of her previous history with which
he was entirely unacquainted. But I can't go on in this way, Mr.
Bruhn," added Margaret, with a little laugh. " I must tell my story
after my own fashion."

" That is to say, after the pleasantest fashion possible."

So Margaret told the story of her life — told of the sudden down-
fall of her father, long years before, from wealth to poverty ; told of
his enforced flight from England ; how he had lived abroad for many
years, and how his present occupation was that of second violin in the
Theatre Royal, Wellingford. All this she told without imputing a
shadow of blame to her father, leading her hearer to understand that
all Mr. Davenant's misfortunes had resulted from causes entirely
outside his personal control, for nothing had ever shaken Margaret's
love for her father. Then, in a few words, she sketched her own
career during all those weary years that had come and gone since the
breaking up of her home. She concealed nothing from Mr. Bruhn
save that ugly business of the purloined letter, but concerning that she
was as silent as the grave.

When she had done speaking, Mr. Bruhn walked on in silence for- a
moment or two, then he stopped ; then, taking Margaret by the
hand, he said, " Is that all you have to urge as a reason for not
becoming my wife ? "

" That is all," rephed Margaret, in a low voice.

"Then you might have saved yourself the trouble of such a
confession. Or, rather, you could not have invented anything that
would have done so much towards increasing my affection for you — if
any increase of it were possible — than the plain narrative of facts I
have just heard from your lips. So now, for the second time, I ask
you, Margaret Davenant, whether you will be my wife ? "

" I will — (iod willing," said Margaret.

" For life and death ? "

" For life and death."

" Amen ! " said Mr. Bruhn ; and with that he drew Margaret's face
gently towards his, and kissed her twice.

( To be continued.)

25

A LOYAL HEART.

By F. M. F. Skene.

I.

TN the midst of a richly-wooded valley near the south coast of
■^ England there stands an old grey stone house, which not many
years ago was the home of a somewhat strangely assorted family.

It is a beautiful summer evening, and they are all assembled on
the lawn outside the drawing-room windows, so that we can examine
their appearance at our leisure and note their peculiar characteristics.
They have a claim upon our interest such as the touch of nature and
reality alone can give, for we are not about to describe fictitious
personages, but human beings who lived in this mortal world and
played their part in the drama we have to unfold.

The most conspicuous figure in the group is a lady about forty-five
years of age, and a very noble-looking woman. Her portrait as she
was at that date is before us now, and we can trace her lineaments
from it : an open, intellectual brow, finely-cut features and clear grey
eyes ; a face combining strength and sweetness in a notable degree.
She is tall and fair, a most unquestionable type of the Saxon race ;
yet she bears a foreign name, and is known in Spain — the country of
her husband — as the Senora de Vilalta.

The venerable old man who sits in an arm-chair by her side calls
her '' Christine," however ; and the strong likeness between them leaves
no room for doubt that they are father and daughter.

General Wyndham is an old cavalry officer ; an Englishman in
every fibre, in every thought and feeling ; and it had been a source of
great regret to him, years before, when his only child at the age of
nineteen married a young attache of the Spanish embassy, and left her
early home to follow the varying fortunes of her husband in many
distant lands. Only at rare intervals had she been able to return to
the old Manor House, where her father had finally established himself
when age compelled him to retire from the service ; and on the present
occasion she was staying with him for a few weeks while M. de Vilalta,
who had- recently been appointed Spanish minister in Paris, was absent
on a special mission in Egypt.

Both the General and his daughter have their eyes fixed on her two
sons, who are walking together on the grass at some little distance
engaged in earnest conversation. They are fine-looking young men,
about three-and-twenty years of age ; but it is hard to believe that
they are twin brothers, so absolutely unlike each other are they in

26 A Loyal Heart.

every point of their personal appearance. They seem indeed to
represent the nationaUty of their parents in a remarkable degree.
Ernest is the taller, and looks an unmistakable Englishman ; fair-
haired, grey-eyed like his mother, with her frank, resolute expression,
slightly tinctured, as it is in her case also, by a touch of haughtiness,
and with the erect military bearing which was still a characteristic of
his stalwart old grandfather.

Ferdinand has the appearance of being older than his brother ;
more slenderly built, while active and athletic in all his movements,
with raven-black hair, large flashing eyes of the same hue, and a clear
olive complexion. He is strikingly handsome, and Ernest was wont
to say, laughingly, that no one ever cast a glance on him if Ferdinand
were anywhere near.

Their sister Elvira, a brilliant-looking maiden of seventeen, who is
flitting from place to place gathering flowers, is exactly like her Spanish-
looking brother. The same dark hair, crowned at this moment with
a wreath of red roses she has chosen to weave for herself, the same
beautiful eyes and mobile expression, and in more delicate form the
same supple, graceful figure, clad in gay-coloured robes, which give
her somewhat the appearance of a gorgeous butterfly as she darts out
and in among the trees.

One other figure there is in this family group entirely unlike any
of those we have described, and yet exceptionally fair and attractive.

A young girl is seated apart from the rest under the shade of an
old oak tree ; a girl with an angel face, as Ferdinand Vilalta often said
to himself while he gazed at her with all the strong love of his
passionate heart glowing in his eyes. There is scarce a tinge of
colour on the sweet pure countenance save in the rose-bud lips ; her
large eyes are of the limpid blue which is only seen in the morning
sky, and a cloud of soft brown hair falls back from her broad open
forehead. Her expression is calm and serious for one so young, and
her thoughtful gaze is bent on a large book which lies on her knees.
A huge dog of the St. Bernard breed couches at her feet, one of his
massive paws is laid on the long folds of her white dress, as if to
secure that she does not move without his permission ; but his head
is turned towards the two young men, whose every movement he
follows with the closest attention.

Alba Wyndham is the orphan child of the General's favourite
nephew. Her father and mother had come to make their home with
him when he retired from the army, in order to save him from the
loneliness to which his daughter's absence would have condemned
him ; but they had both died within a few months of each other,
leaving their lovely, gentle child to be the joy and consolation of the
old man's declining years. She had received the name of Alberta at
her baptism ; but the word " Alba " seemed so singularly appropriate,
both to her appearance and to her mental characteristics, that she was
never called by any other.

A Loyal Heart. 27

It is not on her, however, that General Wyndham is gazing now, but
on his two grandsons, as, arm in arm, they pace to and fro.

" They are fine lads, Christine," said the General, examining them
critically, " and I am proud of them, for all they bear a foreign name
and were brought up on stranger soil ; yet Ernest is my favourite, for
he has chosen my own profession, which I hold to be the finest in the
world. I am glad, with all my heart, that he has not followed in his
brother's steps."

" There was no risk of that," said Christine. " Ernest could never
have taken any other line — he is a born soldier ; I suppose he must
have inherited the taste from you. Yet I never encouraged him till I
was quite certain it was not a mere childish fancy. You know
Vilalta has always left the education and general management of the
children entirely to me ; he has been too completely absorbed in his
diplomatic duties, and too often absent from us altogether, to be able
to watch over their interests. Ernest's desire became so marked that
I felt I had no right to thwart his wish to go to Berlin and enter as
cadet at the great institution which is so renowned for turning out the
most splendid officers. As you know, he has gone through the whole
course of the hard regimental discipline with steady determination,
advancing step by step, till you see him now, young as he still is, a
lieutenant in the Prussian cavalry corps. It was the fact of his having
a few weeks' furlough that decided me to come over to England and
pay you a visit at once. I wanted you to make acquaintance with
him as a full-blown soldier — he was but a boy w^hen you saw him
last."

" You have given me the very greatest pleasure," exclaimed the
General ; " yet I do not half like his being in the Prussian service.
He has nothing on earth to do with that country, which is neither
yours nor your husband's. Why, if the Germans went to war he would
have to fight with them, even if they were in arms against England !

" There is no fear of that," said Christine : " we are on very
friendly terms with Germany ; and Ernest fully intends to enter the
army of Spain, his own country, as soon as he has gone through the
different grades necessary for a complete knowledge of his profession.
It was simply for the admirable training that he entered the Prussian
service."

" True," returned the General ; " and even if he were to remain
among the Germans all his life, I should be better satisfied than if he
had taken to a diplomatic career like his brother."

" Yet that profession suits Fernan remarkably well," said Christine.
" He is exceptionally shrewd and clever, and has many of the qualities
necessary for that peculiar work ; his father finds him extremely
useful as attache to his own embassy. If I live long enough, I hope
to see him an ambassador like Vilalta himself some day, though I
would rather have him anywhere than in Paris.

" Paris," she continued, with animation, "is always in a state of

23 A Loyal Heart.

excitement from one cause or another. How different my temporary
home there is to this quiet scene ! " looking round on the beauti-
ful grounds which surrounded the old Manor House, lit up at the
moment by the soft sunset glow. " That dear Alba might represent
the very spirit of peace as she sits there in her snow-white robes.
Ernest often speaks of her ' forget-me-not eyes,' because he says they
are just the colour of that significant little flower."

" Ah ! she is only ' a little lower than the angels,' " quoted the
General, glancing fondly at his adopted daughter. " I should not
wonder if both your boys were in love with her, Christine. I do not
see how they could well help it."

" Oh, I hope not both ! " said the mother hastily, though a slight
fear on the subject had been lurking for some time in her mind.
"There cannot be any doubt of Fernan's admiration, but I trust
Ernest only feels towards her as a brother might."

" Well, they must settle it among themselves," said the General ;
" she will have my blessing with her wherever she goes."

At that moment a servant appeared on the steps leading from the
front door, and crossing the lawn, delivered a telegram to Ernest.
The brothers paused and together looked on the brief words of a
foreign despatch so soon as it was opened. Then startled exclama-
tions burst from the lips of both, and Ernest flew over the grass to
the spot where Christine was seated, holding the ominous paper before
her eyes.

" Look ! " he said, excitedly. " Do you see what it says ? War is
declared between France and Prussia ; the whole army is under arms,
and I am summoned to rejoin my regiment."

Yes ! it was indeed the terrible message which rang as the death-
knell of thousands upon thousands through the whole of Europe one
fatal day, and which still echoes mournfully in many a home made
desolate thereby, though some twenty years have come and gone since
then. It pierced the mother's heart of her who looked on that fair
stalwart youth, radiant in health and strength, as he stood flushed and
eager before her, holding in his hand the order which called him to
the deadly battle-field. Her face blanched and her lips trembled,
courageous woman as she was.

The General started forward.

" Is war really proclaimed ? " he cried. " Hurrah ! My boy, you'll
go into action now and learn what it means to be a soldier. You will
see some splendid fighting, and it will be the making of you, though
I wish with all my heart you were not going to fight for an alien
country, I could see you risk your life with satisfaction for England
or even for Spain, but Prussia has no sort of claim on you."

" Yes, it has, grandfather," said Ernest, smiling ; " it has given me
my education as a soldier, and I am bound to its service for the
moment. It is the cause of duty and honour, so far as I am
concerned, and I cannot delay even an instant in responding to

A Loyal Heart. 29

the call. Mother, I must go by the next train," he added, his voice
softening. " Will you come with me while I get my kit ready ? I
have not more than half an hour to do it in."

" My boy — must you go to-night ? " said Christine, her voice
faltering. " Is there no appeal ? So be it, then, my son. I will not
hinder you another moment."

" The time is so short for preparing my luggage," said Ernest, " I
think I must take leave of you all now and not come out here again.
Mother and Fernan will come and help me to pack. Grandfather, I
know I shall have your blessing," he continued, bending his handsome
head before the old man, who laid his hand upon it fondly.

" You shall have it, indeed, my boy, now and always, till my name
comes, as soon it must, on the roll-call of death. The Lord of
Hosts be with you ; the God of my fathers guard and keep you."

He sank back in his chair as he spoke, for at his great age he was
little able to bear any emotion ; and his daughter, fearing its effect on
his health, drew Ernest gently away.

Ernest then passed on towards Alba, who had risen to her feet
and was standing like a fair statue cut in white marble, with her hand
on the head of the great dog, whose large brown eyes were fixed on
the young soldier.

It was then that Ferdinand, with a wildly beating heart, drew near
to watch this special leave-taking. He thought that he might gather
some indication from it as to the feelings really subsisting between
those two. He had loved Alba Wyndham, from the first moment he
had looked on her sweet angelic face, with the passionate ardour of his
whole being ; and the close intercourse of the last few weeks, when
they had dwelt day after day in that old Manor House together, had
intensified his absorbing affection, till he felt that earth could have
for him no other hope or dream save only to win her sooner or later
to be his own. Yet he had said no word to her or to any one of this
complete surrender of the whole happiness of his life into her hands ;
for, although she had gained indeed the whole worship of his maturer
manhood, he was still faithful to the earlier love that had brightened
his existence from the first dawn of consciousness, and a deadly fear
lay curdling like ice around his heart that Alba was perhaps as
passionately dear to his twin brother as to himself — the object of
Ernest's fondest hopes as much as of his own. Could it be other-
wise, he had asked himself many times during those weeks which they
had spent in her presence, charmed ever by the strange loveliness of
her rare smile, or the soft tones of her voice, that seemed to Fernan
sweet as heavenly music. Could any man look on Alba Wyndham
and not feel that she was the one peerless gift for which he must long
above all others ?

Fernan, in his loyal devotion to his brother, had resolved that he would
rigidly conceal the absorbing love that dominated his whole being till
he knew how it fared with Ernest. He had not as yet been able to

30 A Loyal Heart.

gain any clear indication of the secret feelings either of his brother or
of Alba herself. Surely this would be a crucial moment, when they
were about to part, possibly to meet no more. Fernan's eager eyes
devoured the group as Ernest drew near to the young girl and took
her hand.

" The sad moment has come very quickly, Alba," he said, " and I
must not linger for many words. Will you be true to your forget-me-
not eyes, and remember me sometimes ? "

" Always," she said gently, lifting the beautiful blue orbs to his face.

He bent his head and whispered low that his mother might not
hear the words, though Fernan's quick ear caught them.

" You know that I am going into deadly peril, and we may never
meet again. Alba, I shall have your prayers ? "

" Yes," she replied, simply ; " but you shall have also what is far
better." Sheput into his hands the little black-bound Testament out
of which she had been reading. " This will speak to you ever of the
Captain of your salvation. He will watch over His soldier on the
battle-fields of earth."

Ernest took the book, kissing the little white fingers that held it in
silence, and then without another word walked quietly into the house.
Ferdinand followed, feeling that he had learned nothing whatever from
this brief interview.

II.

It is on a very different scene from the pleasant garden of the English
Manor House that Ernest Vilalta is gazing when we see him a few
months later.

Nothing remains to him of that dear home, and the friends that
were around him there, save only the great dog that had been lying
at Alba Wyndham's feet on the memorable evening when the war
tidings fell like a thunderbolt on the family party. Leo had always
belonged to Ernest from the days of his puppyhood, and adored him
with the faithful devotion of which dogs of his calibre are often
capable. He had been with him through all his years of military
training, and in the peaceful days when there was no call to active
service he had seemed to form a part of the regiment, and had been
wont to walk with a stately step in front of the band whenever they
were marching from place to place. During the time of Ernest's visit
to his grandfather before the war broke out, the dog had seemed
strangely attracted to Alba Wyndham, and, when not required by his
master, always took up a station near her. Ferdinand used to say
that it reminded him of Una and her lion ; and certainly it was a pretty
sight to see the slender white-robed girl moving along with her quiet,
graceful step, while the huge animal paced majestically by her side.

Since then, however, he had followed the fortunes of his master
through the series of terrible battles which had proved fatal to France

A Loyal Heart. 31

— from the first half-doubtful victory of Saarbruck, when the young
Prince Imperial — reserved for a darker fate years after in Zululand —
had been said by his father to have received his " baptism of fire," to
that historic day on the sanguinary field of Sedan, when the defeated
discrowned Emperor yielded himself a prisoner to the Prussian King.
Ernest had not passed unscathed through all that awful time. He
had twice been slightly wounded ; but, with indomitable courage, had
made light of his injuries and returned as soon as possible to his
active duties. The tremendous struggle was far from being over,
though the French Empire had vanished away to swell the list of
earth's vain departed glories. Already Paris was being invested for the
siege she was to undergo. The troops, among whom Ernest Vilalta
had his place, were following rapidly in his wake towards the doomed
city ; but they were opposed continually by the scattered remnants of
the French army, and many a fierce combat took place, Which strewed
the ground with the lifeless forms of brave men sacrificed in vain.

Such an encounter was expected on the morrow by Ernest's regiment
and others associated with it. The Prussian General in command
knew that the enemy awaiting him a few leagues off had mustered in
greater force than any they had yet encountered, and it was only the
darkness of a moonless night which had gained a few hours' respite for
the contending foes.

He had ordered the troops to forage for what provisions they could
get that they might be ready for the fierce work that would begin with
the morning light, and most of the officers and men alike were busy
over the spoils of farms and country houses which they had pillaged
as they traversed the fertile vales of France.

Ernest had not as yet joined any of them. He had forgotten the
hunger which a short time before had seemed unbearable, because the
balloon post had just brought a welcome batch of letters, sent out
almost as the last possible despatch from Paris, and there was one for
him, written on behalf of the whole family by his brother Ferdinand.
Crouching down by the camp-fire, which his companions had deserted
to go to the provision tent for their supper, Ernest devoured every
line of the closely-written sheets by the flame-light beside him, while
Leo lay across his feet and watched him intently with his loving eyes.
The correspondence between Ernest and his family had been carried
on without much difficulty up to the moment when the investment of
Paris had taken place ; but he knew well that he was reading the last
communication he could possibly receive from any within those iron-
girded walls. He had heard that, almost immediately after his
departure from England, his father had summoned his wife and
children to rejoin him at his post in Paris, and they had remained
there together ever since that time. Ferdinand wrote that a general
flight of all who could afford to escape had taken place so soon as it
was known that the siege was really going to commence.

Senor Vilalta, as the representative of his country, felt bound to

32 A Loyal Heart.

remain, whatever hardships he might have to undergo ; but he insisted
that at least his wife and daughter must be sent away to a place of
safety, while a terrible discovery which had just been made with regard
to Ferdinand rendered it absolutely necessary that he too should
depart as quickly as possible. " Conceive my feelings, Ernest," the
letter went on to say, " when I received this morning the imperative
order to take up arms in defence of Paris, and to go forthwith on the
ramparts to fight the Prussians under the French General's command.
Every young man, of whatever nationality, who is found within these
walls to-morrow is to be enrolled for the defence of the city. My
sympathies are much with the unfortunate French, and I would have
fought for them willingly were it not that I should be brought face to
face in mortal combat with my own twin brother — you on the Prussian
side, I among the French. My mother's horror at the very idea is so
overwhelming that she has been straining every nerve to get ready to
leave Paris this very night — in fact, we must go at once if we are to
go at all ; the railways are nearly all blocked, and it will be no easy
matter to get down to the coast, whether at Calais or Boulogne. We
go to England ; to the Manor House, of course ; only my father
remains in our house, which, being a legation, with the Spanish flag
hoisted over it, cannot be sacked for food or money."

Ernest was still scanning every word of this letter, lost to the present
in the thought of his mother and his home, when a soldier passing
near suddenly perceived him and stopped. He drew himself up to
the prescribed attitude and saluted.

" Herr Hauptman," he said — for Ernest had now attained the rank
of captain. The young man looked up and saw that it was a private
of his own regiment, to whom he had shown some kindness.
" Excuse the liberty, but I wish just to tell you that if you do not go
at once to get your share of the food going in the provision tent, you
will be left to starve for to-night and to-morrow. The officers from
all the different regiments are devouring everything they can lay
hands upon. There will be nothing at all left in another half hour."

" You are right, my good fellow," said Ernest, rising at once. " It
will not do for me to go into action to-morrow as a starving man.
Thanks for the warning." And, folding up his letter, he thrust it
into his breast and made his way at once to the tent where his
fellow-officers were engaged on the first regular meal they had had
that day.

It was crammed with hungry men, many of whom were unknown
to him, as they did not all belong to his own regiment. There was
not a single empty seat, and every available cup or dish was being
vigorously used to appropriate portions of the provisions which
occupied the centre of the table. Ernest, whose keen appetite was
now making itself felt in full force, stood in the entrance to the tent,
looking on wistfully at the meal which there seemed no chance of his
being able to share. A young German officer, however, who was

A Loyal Heart. 33

seated near the door, happened to look up and see him thus
condemned by his tardy arrival to witness the rapid disappearance of
the food he so much required ; and although he had had no previous
acquaintance with Ernest Vilalta, he good-humouredly came to his
assistance, and he beckoned him quickly to his side. Then he made
room for him on the barrel turned upside down, which formed his
seat, and arranged that Ernest should share both his plate and his
cup ; so that, being provided with his own pocket-knife, he was able
in the end to make a very good supper. When it was over he
warmly thanked his unknown protector for the kindness he had
done him, and eagerly scanned his handsome, pleasant countenance
in order that he might recognise him in the future. At that moment
the drum beat for all to retire to their quarters and get what rest
they could before the dawn called them into action.

Into the details of the terrible fight which took place next day we
shall not enter. Our history has to do solely with the fortunes of the
Vilalta family, and not with the details of that unforgotten struggle
between two great military powers which well-nigh convulsed the
whole of Europe while it lasted.

Ernest Vilalta's horse had been shot under him towards the close
of the contest, but he himself had escaped uninjured. The Prussian
loss had been slight compared with that of the French, and he was
standing leaning somewhat mournfully on his sword as he looked
down on the sad sights spread everywhere around, when suddenly
he saw a Prussian officer staggering along, making a last supreme
effort to reach a place of shelter. He stumbled and nearly fell at
every step, evidently weakened to the utmost degree by loss of
blood, and just as he reached Ernest, who had started forward to
assist him, he sank down at his feet in a dead faint.

Ernest flung down his sword and went on his knees beside the
prostrate man, lifting his head on his arm. And, as he did so, he
instantly recognised in the pallid suffering face the countenance of the
young officer who had befriended him on the previous night at the
crowded supper-table, and let him share his seat and drink with him
from the cup which had served them both.

Here for a moment we must pause to say that this is no fictitious
incident, but the true and actual experience of the real individual
whom we have described under the name of Ernest Vilalta. The
writer heard him relate with what strong emotion he discovered in the
officer who thus fell at his feet the unknown benefactor whom he had
met for the first time in the provision tent.

How thankful he felt to be able to make him now some return for
his kindness ! He called vehemently to a soldier who was passing
near, bearing w^ater to the wounded, and with some of it laved the
face and hands of the fainting man, till a low sigh, passing from his
lips, showed that he still lived. Then, with the help of the soldier,
Ernest lifted him from the ground, and between them they succeeded

VOL. LIV. D

34 ^ Loyal Heart.

in carrying him to the hospital tent, though it stood at a considerable
distance from the battle-field. They found it already crowded "vvith
the wounded, who were rapidly being brought in ; but Ernest
succeeded in obtaining a vacant mattress for his friend, where he laid
him down. After what seemed a long time to his impatience, one of
the army surgeons attending to the stricken men made his way to
Ernest's charge, and proceeded to examine his condition.

"The wound is not fatal," he said in answer to Vilalta's eager
questions. " I can bind up the shoulder so that it will soon heal ;
but he is in temporary peril from loss of blood. His life depends on
his having nourishment and stimulants every hour. He seems to be
a friend of yours, Herr Hauptman. Can you take care of him
through the night ? We have not soldier-nurses enough for even half
the wounded."

" I will stay with him gladly ! " exclaimed Ernest. " I will just go
and report myself to my superior officer whilst you are bandaging his
wounds, and I shall be back in five minutes."

When he returned, after a short interval, having got ready
permission from his colonel to act the part of nurse for the present,
he found that the wounded officer had already revived sufficiently to
open his eyes and look round with a confused, uncertain gaze. He
was too weak to speak, however ; and Ernest, having received full
directions from the surgeon, sat down on the ground by his side —
there being no available seats — and began the process of feeding the
powerful-looking man as if he were an infant, with such small spoon-
fuls of soup and stimulants as he was able to take, until the slumber
of exhaustion at last overtook him.

The darkness of night soon settled down upon the camp and on
the sleepers lying under the stars upon the fatal field, to awaken
no more till the trump of the archangel should call them from their
long repose.

Ernest's patient slept during the greater part of the night,' though
he was slightly feverish from his wound ; and when daylight at last
made its way fully into the tent, he was sufficiently revived to speak to
his faithful companion. He opened his eyes and looked up at Ernest ;
then a faint smile passed over his pale lips as he evidently recognised him.

" Ah, it is you," he said — " the hungry captain ! I hope you are
not hurt. I can feel that I am, and I see I am in hospital ; but

you " He stopped, plainly not able for many words in his

weakness.

" I am simply your nurse," said Ernest, smiling. " I have not been
wounded — only my poor bay charger that carried me so well lies
prone on the field. But you have fared worse than I did, though I
am thankful to say you are no longer in danger ; the doctor has just
said you are going on favourably."

" I do not feel as if I should ever be fit for anything again," said
the officer ruefully ; " it is an eifort even to speak."

I

A Loyal Heart. 35

" Doubtless you will have to be a few weeks in hospital before you
can return to duty, but I am assured there is no fear of your ultimate
recovery."

" And you have been with me all night after fighting all day ? How
come you to be my nurse, Herr Hauptman ? " said the sick man
faintly.

" Because some instinct led you to fall in a dead faint at the feet
of the very person who, above all others, was bound to do what
he could for you. Last night you let me share your meal when, but
for your kindness, I should have had to go into action in a very unfit
condition. I was delighted to have an opportunity of showing my
gratitude by taking care of you now."

" You have indeed most generously repaid a very small service,"
said the officer languidly ; and then his head sank back, and he closed
his eyes in exhaustion.

Ernest Vilalta still remained with him till the colonel came to the
tent to make arrangements for the removal of the wounded to the
regular hospital of a town which was only a few leagues off. When
the list of names was read out, Ernest found that his patient was
Lieutenant Wilhelm Steinsdorf, of the Hussars ; and, to his infinite
satisfaction, he found himself appointed by the colonel to be the
officer in command of the ambulance waggons, so that he was to
accompany the wounded men and remain with them for a few days in
order to report on their condition at headquarters.

As a natural consequence of the care and attention Ernest had
bestowed on his patient, he began to feel a vivid interest in him. He
went, therefore, with the most cheerful alacrity to get another horse in
place of the faithful animal he had lost that he might ride at the head
of the waggons full of wounded men and lead them safely to their
destination.

It was late in the evening when they arrived at the town hospital,
and the sick men were at once put to bed in the wards — only too
sadly crowded by their numbers. Once this was done, the soldier-
nurses were allowed to depart, for there were Sisters of Charity and
other women to attend to the patients, though unhappily not so many
as were required by the critical cases so suddenly placed under their
care. Steinsdorf had not apparently suffered by the journey, but he
was too much exhausted to do more than murmur a faint " Schlafen
sie wohl" when Ernest left him for the night and went very thankfully
to take the rest he so much needed himself.

Next morning the young Captain Vilalta returned to the hospital at
an early hour; and as soon as he had gone over the roll-call and
ascertained how many of the poor soldiers had succumbed to their
injuries, he went eagerly to Steinsdorf s bedside, anxious to know how
he had passed the long hours of the night. He found him somewhat
better and stronger, but restless and low-spirited. He complained to
Ernest that the nurses were much too few for the requirements of the

D 2

36 A Loyal Heart.

sick, and that he had been a good deal neglected, besides being
painfully affected by the deaths which had taken place in the ward.

" And here I must lie for at least three weeks, the doctor tells me,"
he said gloomily. " You will not be able to stay with me, my
good friend, for you will certainly be recalled to duty in a very
few days."

" No doubt," replied Ernest ; "but you must tell me if there
is anything I can do in the meantime to help you."

" You can help me very much if you will carry out a plan I have
thought of in the night. I want so much to get my sister Lotta here
to take care of me and keep me company. I hope it is not selfish to
wish to bring her into such a place, for she went through a nurse's
training of her own free will that she might be of use if ever
there should be war in the Fatherland. She would long to be with
me if she knew I was wounded, but I am too weak to write or make
any arrangements for her coming ; you must do it, if it is done
at all."

" That I will most readily ! " exclaimed Ernest. " Where is your
sister ? Can I write to her ? "

" She is at Augsburg, where my father and mother live ; it is our
home."

" That is good. Then I can send her a telegram ; the wires have
not been cut from here."

" Why, that might bring her to me this evening ! " exclaimed
Steinsdorf. " Send her a short message — ' Wilhelm is wounded,
lying in hospital. Come to him ' — ^and she will be here as quickly as
the train can bring her."

Ernest was delighted to see how his friend had brightened under the
prospect of having his only sister with him. He hurried off to the
telegraph office and succeeded at that early hour in getting his message
despatched at once. Late that evening he made his way once more
to Steinsdorf s bedside, hoping to be able to make him comfortable for
the night, and there, to his great satisfaction, he found a dainty little
maiden, wearing a nurse's uniform, but unmistakably a lady, whom
Steinsdorf with the greatest pride and satisfaction introduced as
his sister Lottchen. She had lovely brown eyes, which she raised
gratefully to Ernest's own as she thanked him for his kindness to
her brother, and the young man thought he had never looked upon a
more charming face. Lotta possessed the delicate tints of a wild rose,
and, with all her freshness and youthfulness, had an expression that
told of serious thought and high-minded earnestness. It seemed to
Ernest, indeed, after he had passed half an hour in her company, that
she combined the meditative gravity of Alba Wyndham's disposition
with the light-hearted vivacity of his young sister Elvira, and he left
Steinsdorf s side that night convinced that, despite his wound, he was
the most fortunate person in the world to possess such a companion.

A Loyal Heart. yj

III.

It may be imagined with what feeUngs of anxiety and distress
Christine Vilalta left Paris with her son and daughter. She was
obHged to leave her husband in their house, protected as it was by
the Spanish flag ; but she knew that if the siege were prolonged till
provisions failed, he would have to share the dire hardships of the
people. She was standing by his side making some last arrangements
just before starting, when Elvira came flying into the room with
tears in her bright eyes.

" Mother," she exclaimed, " the servants tell me that all my poor
pretty canary birds will be eaten up during the siege ! They say
nothing that has life will escape ; yet you say that I am not to take
them away with me ! "

"We cannot possibly take a dozen singing birds with us, dear
child," said Christine. " We shall have difficulty enough in getting
through to the coast ourselves, and can only travel with such baggage
as we can carry in our hands."

" Console yourself, Elvira," said her father good-humouredly ; " I
will try to protect your birds. They would not make much of a
mouthful any one of them, or even if they were all put together ; and
I think everything in this house will be safe under my flag."

We may here mention a fact which was greatly commented upon
after the siege was over in Paris, that when the Vilaltas returned to
their house in that city, they found their little canary birds alive and
well, singing away as merrily as if the most appalling scenes had not
been taking place under the window where they hung. They were said
to have been the only edible creatures that still retained their life in
the whole place.

How strange it seemed to them to pass from all the dis-
tracting tumult of that war-stricken country, to the quiet, peaceful
home where the placid old man — his battles long since ended — sat
quite undisturbed by his fireside, tended by the loving care of his
gentle Alba ! It was like being in another world ; and the light-
hearted Elvira, who as yet had known no greater anxiety than that
which had been aroused by the possible fate of her canaries, was very
soon as gay and happy as ever. But she was the only real element
of gladness in the house, for her mother and Ferdinand had both in
different ways heavy causes of disquietude, and there was a deep shade
of sadness in Alba's limpid blue eyes, though with her usual self-
forgetting reserve she said nothing as to her own feelings at any time.

Christine Vilalta was a brave woman ; she had gone through many
severe trials since her marriage ; she had had a numerous family, and
her children had been taken from her one by one, till only the three
remained in whom her strong affections were now centred ; yet
never perhaps had she known such a cruel weight of intolerable
suspense as that which she strove to bear patiently during the weeks

38 A Loyal Heart.

that rolled over her head in the quiet Manor House. For a terrible
silence had fallen upon her at last as regarded the fate of her soldier
son. Ernest had from the beginning of the war been most assiduous
in writing to his mother by every possible opportunity which presented
itself, and for some time after she took refuge at the Manor House
his letters still reached her at rare intervals. At length they ceased
altogether, and now for many weeks she had been a prey to the most
cruel uncertainty. Not a syllable which could give her tidings of him
had reached her in any shape or way.

The winter commenced very early in that terrible year, and such
rumours of the work of the Prussian army as did come to her ears
told of snow lying thick and deep on the battle-fields, of sentinels
frozen to death at their posts, of deadly combats fought amidst
blinding storms, of havoc and destruction going on even among the
Prussian forces, though they were still entirely victorious. Many and
many a time during this agonising period Christine gave up her Ernest
as lost to her for ever in this world, and her fine face grew haggard
and wan with an unappeasable yearning and regret which was never
stilled in her aching breast for a moment. One only gleam of comfort
she had in the fact that Ferdinand refused absolutely to believe that
any fatal catastrophe had befallen his brother. He declared that he
had an instinctive conviction Ernest was yet alive, which was to
himself as undeniable a proof of his safety as if he had seen him with
his own eyes. And Christine knew that a mysterious sympathy does
often exist between twins which renders them in some indefinable way
cognisant of any calamity which befalls each other.

Ferdinand had none the less his full measure of suffering during the
long weeks of suspense which so sorely tried his mother. He had a
weight at his heart that was almost intolerable to his strong passionate
nature, because he could take no action to remove it, and had only
to bear it in resolute silence. He was living in closest intercourse
with Alba Wyndham. Every hour that he passed in her presence
seemed to show him more and more clearly the rare beauty of her
character, the almost angelic sweetness of her disposition ; the deep
love he had borne her from the first grew in its intensity within him
till it seemed to absorb his whole being ; yet he dared not make
the faintest attempt to win her. The dread that Ernest loved Alba
Wyndham no less fondly than he did himself had only deepened
with the strengthening of his own attachment ; and it seemed to him a
treachery of which his noble nature was quite incapable, that he should
basely snatch at this unequalled prize while his brother, far away amid
his stern duties on the battle-field, was precluded from any possibility
of even trying to gain it. Meantime it was a great addition to his
trial that he found himself quite unable to conjecture what Alba's
feelings really were. She was singularly reserved respecting everything
that concerned herself, simply because her thoughts and sympathies
were all for others ; and in her pure unselfishness she seemed to care

A Loyal Heart. 39

nothing for her own happiness if only she could minister to that of the
friends around her.

So the days in the gathering winter gloom passed slowly over the
quiet English home.

One afternoon General Wyndham was seated as usual in his great
chair near the fire, with Alba in her favourite position on a stool at
his feet, Christine, at a table, was writing to her husband on a tiny
scrap of paper such as could be placed under a carrier pigeon's wing ;
and Ferdinand, apparently engaged with a book in his hand, was
doing his best to catch a glimpse of the " forget-me-not blue eyes " on
which Ernest had been wont to gaze so admiringly.

Suddenly the old man raised himself out of his chair and stood
upright on his feet. He grasped his gold-headed walking-stick, without
which he was now too feeble to move, in one hand, while he placed the
other on Alba's shoulder as she rose to assist him. " Come with me,
dear child," he said, and she went at once, supporting him gently and
thinking that he might wish to lie down, as he often did during the day.

To her surprise, however, instead of going into his own room he
made his way to the hall, where the antlers of the deer he had shot in
his youth were still fixed to the wall. He looked round with a wistful
gaze, then passed on to the library and dining-room, and finally into
every part of the house which had ever been occupied by himself or
the young wife he had lost nearly half a century before. She had
died when Christine, their only child, was born, and he had spent
many years after in active service ; but she seemed to be present with
him that day, as he went into her long disused boudoir and touched
with tender hand the little ornaments that had belonged to her.

The Manor House had been the home of his forefathers, and he
had himself been born there. Alba saw him fix a strange earnest
gaze on all the familiar objects as he led her on from room to room,
preserving, however, a complete silence. When he seemed to con-
sider that his survey was concluded, he went quietly back to his place
by the fireside and sat down as before without a word. The incident
filled Alba with an undefinable sense of uneasiness.

The General had for some time previously been very wakeful and
restless at night ; his memory had failed him a good deal, and
although it was not very noticeable through the day, it led him during
the long dark hours to go back in imagination to the events of his
childhood and youth, till it seemed to him that many of his early
friends, whose feet were treading no more on any mortal shore, were
sitting by his side and companying with him as of old. Since he had
had these harmless delusions Alba had remained with him at night,
taking what rest she could on a low couch near him, while his servant
occupied the dressing-room beyond. On the evening after his strange
progress through the house she did not attempt to lie down, but sat
quietly by his bedside, even after he had fallen into what seemed to
be a very tranquil slumber.

40 A Loyal Heart.

Suddenly, about midnight, he started awake and sat upright in his
bed, with his eyes wide open, gazing fixedly in front of him. A light
was burning near, which shone full on his face ; and Alba was amazed
to see with what a strange look of vigour and youthfulness it seemed
to be imprinted. He stretched out his right hand with a dignified
gesture, and then in a loud, clear voice gave the word of command to
his regiment, whom it was evident he believed were standing in their
ranks before him. Quick and sharp his different orders rang out for
the performance of various military manoeuvres. He seemed to scan
the manner in which they were carried on, glancing keenly from side
to side, and for some minutes this pathetic drama of the aged man's
imaginary revival of the scenes and duties of his youth went on with
extraordinary vividness and power.

Alba watched him, breathless with surprise and alarm ; but at last
she saw a look of bewilderment pass over his animated face ; he
shaded his eyes for a moment with his hand, and then said :

" It grows dark — quite dark ; we cannot continue the parade. If
I had known that night was to fall so soon I would not have called
the men out ; they must retire to their quarters." He gave the order
to that effect, but with a less steady voice ; then after a moment he
added : " Have the men all dispersed ? — are they safely housed ? — is
the ground clear ? "

" Yes," said Alba, anxious to allay his excitement by falling in with
his fancy for the moment. " All are gone — they are safe in their
barracks."

" Then my work is done," the good General said in feeble faltering
tones. " I will go home."

He sank back gently on his pillows. His eyes, so bright and keen
a few moments before, closed as in quiet sleep ; his fine features settled
into an expression of perfect peace. He lay there motionless, his
long white hair falling back from his serene face, an image of majestic
repose ; and the watcher by his side knew that it was even as he had
said. The noble old soldier had gone home.

That same night, about the midnight hour, Ernest Vilalta lay
stretched on the snow that covered an extensive plain, where
a sanguinary battle had been fought that day. The snow had
partly come down during the fight, but there had been more
after the victorious Prussian troops had retired, leaving hundreds
of the fallen, both friends and foes, upon the field, where nothing
could be done for those who might be yet alive during the hours of
darkness.

Ernest lay somewhat apart from the others. He had been struck
down by a shot which had completely shattered his right ankle and
foot, while he already bore less serious wounds on his head and arm.
Another bullet had found its way to him after he was down, but that
had been rendered harmless by a singular circumstance, for it was
found afterwards embedded in the small black Testament which Alba

A Loyal Heart. 41

Wyndham had given him, and which he carried next his heart under
his uniform.

He had lain there some hours already, and the snow which had
fallen since had been of service to him in checking the hemorrhage
from his terribly injured foot, while the intense cold had to some
extent benumbed his sense of pain. But Ernest's forces, mental and
bodily, were at a very low ebb. Weak and exhausted as he was, his
power of thought was untouched, and almost in spite of himself he
could not help revolving in his mind again and again his chances for
the future. Youth does not easily believe that death can be very
near, and he thought it quite possible that he might live till morning
if the exposure to the bitter frost did not prove too much even for his
strong vitality ; then, when the burying party were sent to scour the
field and dispose one way or another of the stricken soldiers, if they
found him still breathing they might try to bear him away to a
hospital, only perhaps to see him expire under the pain and fatigue of
the transit. A groan broke from his lips, for he knew that if he did
survive it must be as a maimed cripple. What remained of his foot
would have to be amputated — he must leave the army. Never in the
whole course of his life had Ernest Vilalta known such depths of
depression as those which weighed him down in that dark hour.

And then it was that a most strange consolation seemed to be
vouchsafed to him. He could never afterwards tell whether it was a
dream or a vision that came to him on his couch of snow, but this
was what befell him.

Suddenly he saw his aged grandfather standing by his side, with his
well-known features perfectly clear and distinct in the light of a faint
halo, which seemed to surround his form. He looked down at Ernest
with the kind, loving eyes the young man knew so well, and said in
the firm accents of the voice that had rung in his ears many and
many a time since his childish days : " Fear not, my son, be a good
soldier of Christ, and all will be well." Still for a moment he stood
there, while Ernest, unable to speak — he knew not why — gazed at him
until, waving his hand as if in farewell, he repeated in tones that had
a far-off sound, " Be a good soldier of Christ," and instantly the place
where he had stood was vacant ; there was no one there.

The spell was broken. Ernest found voice to call out feebly,
" Grandfather, my dear Grandfather ! " but there was no answer.
He looked out eagerly over the desolate plain, but nowhere could he
see that venerable beloved form. Too weak to move, he fell back and
lay still. But he was no longer as he had been before ; a glow of
hope seemed to have suddenly cheered his spirit ; his faith and trust
revived, he felt content to leave himself in the hands of the Captain
of his salvation ; and thereafter he remembered nothing more, for he
fell into a sort of slumbrous stupor, which steeped his senses in
complete oblivion.

(To be C07ichided})

42

IN THE LOTUS-LAND.

By Charles W. Wood, F.R.G.S., Author of " Letters from
Majorca," "The Bretons at Home," etc., etc.

"\"^/'E have seen that the de-
* ^ cline of Egypt was very
gradual. Through long centuries,
though her dynasties might change,
she retained all her distinguishing
features, all her peculiar indi-
viduality. One dynasty followed
another, but the ambition of each
was to reign, not to bring in a
new order of things. If there
were reforms, they were only pro-
gressive, carried out on long-exist-
ing lines. The different systems
of writing that arose were merely
the result of experience based on
past learning — improvements fol-
lowing upon old laws and cus-
toms, long existing traditions.

The religion of the Egyptians
also remained fundamentally the
same from age to age. Their be-
lief never varied ; rites and cere-
monies and sacrifices did not
change. Divisions and conten-
tions were unknown. If in one
city Apis was worshipped, and in
another Isis, no rivalry or angry
feeling, no controversy arose in
consequence. Occasionally, as
the centuries rolled on, they added new gods to their list of deities ;
but they were only extensions, emanations, as it were, from the great
Source of all, assistant deities to those they had already set up and
worshipped. No violent transitions shocked their prejudices. They
were a serious people, those early Egyptians, not frivolous, uncertain,
or change-loving.

So with her art and architecture. In this, as in everything else,
they were conservative. The outlines of their sculpture, the set
pose of their figures, the form and fashion of their temples, these

'^<^^^

House in Rosetta.

In the Lotus-Land, 43

never altered. Where their first inspiration came from can never be
known. It may have existed for ages before our earhest records ; for
if a race flourished for centuries before Menes, it would seem impossible
to place a limit to the time when the human race did not exist.

Their creations were built upon grand and majestic lines. Breadth,
height, colossal proportions, these only appealed to them, and to
represent these was their ambition. Of smallness and narrowness,
of triviality of detail and meanness of outline, they knew nothing.
Wide as their desert plains, free as their own free winds, deep, silent
and endless as the flow of their great river, such was the Egyptian
temperament. They were simply a reflection of their own vast
territory, many portions of which, in the earlier times, were inaccessible
to man. And in all times and with all nations it will be found that
the aspect of a country has had great influence upon the character
of the people ; proving that, consciously or unconsciously. Nature
is one of the great moving powers, one of the great educators of the
world. If we visit Egypt and gaze upon the Pyramids, the wonderful
ruins that are scattered up and down the banks of the Nile ; the
gigantic monoliths that in countless numbers were placed stone upon
stone, with a skill of which all trace is lost, and even imagination
cannot realise, we shall stand in silent and amazed contemplation
before these multiplied evidences of an almost superhuman strength
and intellect. The very Sphinx which seems to be looking out upon
the great desert upon the one hand, the distant and invisible sea upon
the other, seems the absolute emblem of repose, as though resting in
its sense of utmost power, suggestive of the very spirit and essence
of guardianship and protection. The minds that conceived it must
have been equally great and stupendous.

And so Egypt went on, to our knowledge, for more than four
thousand years, fluctuating in prosperity, as all nations must ever fluc-
tuate, but remaining firm and true to her traditions — a religious people
whose lives were guided and controlled by a strong faith, and who
evidently had great and earnest conceptions of love and charity and
duty towards their neighbour. Their records and remains prove this
beyond all doubt and dispute.

But nothing lasts for ever. Even great countries have their setting
as certainly as their rising. For nations as well as for men and
women there is an old age and decadence. It came for Egypt.
Other nations sprang up and looked upon her with envious eyes. In
those days the desire for conquest had no limits, and people went to
war for no other reason.

Egypt had been going through gradual changes when the Persians
came down upon her five centuries before the Christian era, and
estabhshed their rule in the once favoured Lotus-Land.

She was still to prosper for a time ; but it was not as the Egypt
of old, free and untrammelled, drawing her prosperity from the riches
of all nations. She had now to submit to the yoke of bondage,

44

In the Lotus- Land:

and it pressed heavily upon her. Alexander was hailed as a deliverer,
and under the early Ptolemies we have seen that she was happy and
prosperous; nevertheless she was making steady, though almost
unseen, progress towards her decline.

<

in

W

w

to
O

ililll!:iJllllili:i:!li-.^ili:i^l;;iai!!i:!!:i!!li!liliH^^

Under the Romans she fell away in art, in literature, in indivi-
duality, in all those features which contribute to the making and
keeping of a great nation. Constantine, by upholding Christianity,
and Theodosius by making it law, seem to strike the last blow at

In the Lotus-Land. 45

Pagan Egypt. All her traditions died with her. Even her literature
was destroyed, though by indirect agencies ; the secret of her writing
was lost, as it seemed, for ever; her hieroglyphics became mere
outlines without sense or meaning ; her gods were thrown down ; her
symbols were scattered. Nothing remained to prove what had been
excepting a land of ruined monuments, and a people that had be-
come a mixture of races, in which the old pure Egyptian element
could scarcely be traced. Under the Byzantine domination the Court
was held at Constantinople, and little good was accomplished, and no
upward progress was possible. The fatalism of the indolent Turks
almost seemed to fall upon the Egyptians, and they made little effort
to save and to elevate that which was destined for the stranger.
Religious controversies arose, disputings of doctrines, unsettHng the
faith of many. The love of change is inherent in human nature,
which, in its inconstancy, too often argues that a change for the
worse is better than no change at all.

The Christian doctrines which passed into law under Theodosius
w^ere questioned, doubted, distorted, and finally changed in their most
essential elements.

Two parties arose, and many sects ; the Theodosian Christians
were in the minority, and became a distinct and separate people,
who were called Copts ; but even into their belief a few heresies
sprang up. The new administration under Justinian was signalised by
this movement, as well as by the persecutions of the Christians in
Alexandria. Under Theodosius they had triumphed ; paganism had
been destroyed; Theophilus, the Patriarch of Alexandria, had
helped with his own hands to hurl the heathen temples and monu-
ments to the ground. In a less righteous cause his zeal would
have amounted to fanaticism or something worse. The statue of
Serapis, which had been brought from Sinope by Augustus, and was
treated by all Egypt with the reverence due to a deity, was destroyed
and burnt in the falling ruins of the Serapeum amidst the triumphant
shouts of the Christians.

But Alexandria was doomed ; her prosperity decreased, her riches
fell away. Theophilus died, and a new, unorthodox patriarch, Cyril,
succeeded him. His fanaticism was equal to that of Theophilus, and
less well directed. His hatred of the Jews amounted to persecution,
and he expelled them from the city. The curse that had fallen upon
them was already at work ; they should be a scattered nation, without
country or abiding city of their own, until in the far-off ages the time
of their restoration should come, and the " chosen people " should
once more become reconciled to their Creator.

Lawlessness arose in Alexandria, and in many other parts of Egypt.
People were put to death for no other reason than that they were true
to their faith, and that an infuriated mob held rule. One of the
saddest and most notorious victims was Hypatia, the daughter of
Theon, the mathematician, a woman whose beauty was unrivalled, and

46

In the Lotus-Land .

whose intellect was only inferior to that of her father. Her murder
in the year 415 for a moment seemed to strike consternation into the
hearts of the leaders, but it remained unavenged, and the reign of
lawlessness was not stayed.

It was just a thousand years after this that Alexandria sank into
absolute decay, and became as a dead city. The discovery of America,
and of the Cape route to India, completed the downfall. The Mame-
lukes, by their infamous reign, only added to the wreck and ruin
of all. The inhabitants, once numbering half a million, fell to below

;:.:^i;!!^ljii'^'{'\!o~^^

Door of an Arabian House.

five thousand. The City of Palaces had disappeared as completely as
the baseless fabric of a vision. The surrounding country, once fertile
and flourishing, became a desert waste. " How are the mighty
fallen ! " might have been said of Alexandria, as David exclaimed
it at the death of Jonathan and Saul.

The Byzantine rule began in Eg)'pt about the year 400 of the
Christian era, and in the year 638 it was succeeded by the Arabian
conquest and the establishment of Mohammedanism.

From what we have said it is evident that Egypt was ripe for a new

I

In the Lotus-Land, 47

order of things, even a new religion. Everything in connection with
Ancient Egypt had departed and disappeared. Her greatness and
grandeur, her reHgion, her learning, her hieroglyphics, her mysticism,
all her old landmarks, the early type of the people, with their gigantic
energy, their breadth and depth of intellect, their earnestness of
purpose, and their power of accomplishing almost the impossible :
all was at an end. The days when 100,000 men could be employed
in a thirty years' labour without let or hindrance or doubt of success
had passed away for ever. It may even be said that when the Arabs
conquered Egypt the people were glad of the change, and received it
with enthusiasm.

In truth, anything was better than the Byzantine dominion. The
Arabs, therefore, found Egypt an easy conquest and a willing prey.
They were ready to submit to the new yoke. All the changes that the
Arabs were desirous of introducing found favour in their eyes.

The Arabians were not slow in availing themselves of this willing-
ness on the part of the Egyptians. The very first thing they did
was to introduce Mohammedanism into the country, and hence-
forth it became her established religion. What Egypt would have
been had she remained purely Christian, true to the faith legal-
ised by Theodosius, will never be known. As men individually
by their lives too often lose blessings and privileges that would
otherwise have been theirs, so is it in the history of nations. It
is possible that Egypt by her own acts diverted into other channels a
rich stream of favour and prosperity by which her lasting happiness and
glory would have been assured. Be this as it may, the Arabs came
and saw and conquered ; set up a new religion and a new dominion ;
their influence was felt throughout the land, and to-day its traces
remain to charm the traveller when almost everything else in connection
with Egypt has passed away.

Old Cairo became their new city and capital. With Alexandria
they would have nothing to do ; it was too full of dissensions ; its
people were too disaffected and unruly, too indolent and abandoned.
Cairo was also better suited for their purpose ; its situation was more
central ; they could more easily communicate with the interior of the
country. It was here that Cambyses in the year 525 B.C. — an interval
of more than a thousand years — had founded New Babylon, and the
Romans had made it the headquarters of one of the three legions
they kept in Egypt during their occupancy of the land. For they
treated Egypt as a dependence, never holding any court there or
bestowing upon it the slightest honour.

Old Cairo became the seat of government of the Arabs, and from
this fact it remains one of the most interesting cities of the world, one
of the most typical from an Oriental point of view. Most especially
they introduced a new order of architecture, not so much in their
houses as in their temples. Before the time of Mohammed they do
not seem to have possessed a very distinctive architecture of their

48

In the Lotus-Land,

P!iiiifnnj|||j|T
11

!:;;lliiiiil'!!iiiill:;:''l

lii^

|J||jjjj||i|ipiiiiPiif]:l^^

iV.^n!iji|tmrar3nwi'iiiirTrniFnrTTirjT'iiTiiinwriTim"rmi''^n^

ii

Window in the Mausoleum of Kala-'oon.

own ; but religion has always influenced art, and it remained for the
doctrines of the false prophet to establish a new school of archi-
tecture upon a distinct and decided basis. They began by con-

i

In the Lotus-Land, 49

verting the Byzantine churches that they found in Cairo into mosques ;
and to this day many of these mosques are a mixture of the Byzan-
tine and Arabian elements. At first they did not even possess their
own architects, but all their work was done by the architects of
Greece.

Their own school, when it arose, was strongly influenced by the
Byzantine and the Persian. From the latter they received their love
■of gorgeousness and grandeur, of pomp and magnificence, for which,
no less than the Persians whom they as quickly followed, they
became distinguished. But gorgeousness and ceremonial, everything
that appeals to the imagination and the senses, must for ever be
associated with the East, that true " land of the sun."

The earliest mosques were built with materials brought from ancient
ruins of the Nile, and here the Arabs did indeed bad service to
the Lotus-Land. The day will come when their ruins, also, will be
treated in like manner. Many of the columns in these mosques had
previously belonged to Greek or Roman monuments. The Egyptian
columns, many of which were immense monoliths, they discarded as
too heavy and plain for their lighter buildings. Their decorations
consisted of inscriptions and arabesques and geometrical patterns
ingeniously combined with leaves and flowers, rich and striking
in effect. Their colours were of the richest and most beautiful
description ; it is impossible to rival the best examples that have
come down to us. They also largely employed the mosaics and
enamelled glass which entered so much into the Byzantine decoration.
The idea of their pointed arches and domes they took from the region
of the Euphrates ; but the domes of Arabian architecture were
more beautiful and graceful than any other. These were reserved
rather for their tombs than their temples, and it is this which gives
to the Tombs of the Caliphs at Cairo so refined and distinctive a
character. All the mosques in Cairo, with the exception of two, have
fiat roofs. Many of the ancient mosques had their tombs beside
them, such as the small and beautiful mosque of Kait-Bey and the
mosques of Hassan and Barkouk.

In taking possession of Egypt, the Arabs found nothing that
appealed to their own temperament. Two people more opposed to
each other could not exist. And although the Egyptians had passed
through changes and vicissitudes, and the tongues of many nations
had echoed in her thoroughfares, it was only when the Arabs
established their rule that the face of the country became changed
beyond recognition.

Depth and mystery, mysticism and symbolism, these had been the
keynotes of the Egyptian religion. Her temples were held sacred
from the people ; none but the priests were allowed to enter ; gloom,
sometimes absolute darkness, characterised them. Their walls were
covered with hieroglyphics, with representations of animals and the
human figure.

VOL. LIV. E

50 In the Lotus-Land,

All this was opposed to the followers of the new religion of
Mohammed. Their temples held nothing mysterious or hidden ;
the greater part of the building was open to the sky ; the doors
were ever open to any of the faithful who chose to enter.
The tracing of the human form was especially forbidden in the
Koran. This is a reason for their falling back upon arabesques in
their decorations. Apparently they are only a beautiful but confused
jumble of geometrical lines ; and frequently they are nothing more ;
but these outlines are varied by long texts from the Koran, equally
meaningless to the ordinary gazer, but intelligible to the initi-
ated. Nothing can be richer in effect than this decoration, upon
which they lavished not only brilliant colours, but unsparingly used
the costliest materials, such as turquoise, porphyry, alabaster and
jasper, with much gilding, intermixed with every species of beautiful
marble, whilst the sheen and changing hues of the mother-of-pearl
rivalled their wonderful enamels.

At times their patterns and ornamentations were inlaid in the
form of mosaic, at others they were sunk into the walls ; again
they stood out in relief, fretworks of plaster, the last being the
most beautiful and effective. It is singular that the Eg}'ptians and
the Arabians should both have employed WTiting and signs for
decorating their walls. The one could not have been an imitation of
the other, for when the Arabs conquered Egypt hieroglyphics had
long been a lost art, and the Arabs looked upon these characters as
mere mystic or cabalistic signs employed by a pagan people.

A very distinctive and beautiful feature of the mosques are the
minarets, those light and elegant shafts or towers which the Muezzins
ascend five times a day to bid the faithful to prayer. We have
already said that to hear the voice ringing out over the city through
the clear sparkling air, is a sound never to be forgotten, thrilling one
with emotion, and certainly contributing to religious feeling.

Undoubtedly it helps to inspire them with fervour. To see them
at their devotions you might think their last hour had come, and
that, like Hezekiah, they were praying for an extension of life. How
far all this degenerates into a mere matter of form and habit ; how
far it comes from the heart ; how far it influences the daily life for
good, we do not know ; and it is not for us to judge. Probably
there are good and bad, holy and unholy, sincere and insincere, as
in all other religions. But that there should be five stated hours for
prayer during the day, in which the faithful do and must join, must
be a wonderful help to the daily life of those who are striving to walk
faithfully in the narrow path of duty.

In nothing is the difference between Egyptian and Arabian art
more apparent than in their temples. The one loved lightness and
change, the earlier people solidity and repetition. The Egyptians
were eminently conservative, the Arabs proverbially fickle. The
Egyptians were stationary, calm, peace-loving ; the Arabs were a

In the Lotus-Land, 51

wandering people, unsettled, dwelling in tents and habitations easily
moved, scouring deserts, flying hither and thither on the wings of the
wind, passionate, resentful, all fire and energy, impatient of control.

This difference of temperament gives the keynote to all the changes
they effected in Egypt after their invasion.

But their own nature, the condition of their lives, was also changing.
The doctrines of Mohammed were destined in a great measure to
revolutionise the lives of the Arabians, and to infuse into them a
certain amount of steadiness and consolidation of character and
purpose, for the want of which they had long been degenerating.
He obtained such hold upon them by his new religion that hence-
forth they were to become as bondsmen.

That they gained by the change cannot be disputed. It prepared
them for greater things, and when they took Egypt they were ready
to make the most of their advantages.

In no place did they reach a higher level. They appeared to rise
to the occasion. Nowhere did they become more firmly established ;
nowhere did their art attain so great a degree of perfection ; nowhere
have they left behind them more admirable traces.

Would that we could say lasting traces, but in point of art this is
evidently not to be. Nothing can be more beautiful than those wonder-
ful buildings, those tombs and mosques, of the eleventh century. To
reproduce them would be impossible ; and they throw a refinement,
a charm and distinction over Cairo that cannot be imagined, but
must be seen to be realized. If the intellect is impressed by such
stupendous buildings as the Pyramids, imagination, one's sense of the
beautiful and the refined, is no less captivated by these wonderful
tombs and temples of the Caliphs. But they are not destined to last
for ever. Already they are passing to ruin and decay. The Musul-
man is a fatalist ; he argues that what is to be, will be ; and nothing
is being done to save these matchless buildings from perishing.
Their situation also makes them additionally striking, for the tombs
were nearly always placed on high ground to keep them from the
influence of the river.

Their mosques are of three types, belonging to three periods of
time, differing essentially from each other. The earliest are the
simplest. The best example of these is the Mosque of Amrou,
in Old Cairo. After conquering Egypt, Amrou built the mosque in
commemoration of his victory, upon the lines of the Mosque at
Mekka. These earlier mosques are of the plainest architecture, and
receive their dignity from their destiny and simplicity.

The second period of mosques came under the Mameluke Sultans.
Architecture had made great strides by this time, and their buildings
were much more complicated. The earlier mosques were light and
fragile, as if built only for time — a peculiarity which gave them a cer-
tain grace of their own. The mosques of the second period were more
seriously and solidly constructed, as if posterity had been thought of

E 2

Mosque of Said Pasha, Alexandria.

In the Lotus-Land. 53

as well as the present hour. They were meant to last ; and in effect
they still exist ; but, as we have said, if some antiquarian or conserva-
tive society — such, for instance, as the Society for the Preservation of
Historical Monuments, in France — does not speedily take the matter
in hand and rescue these buildings from ruin, their years are num-
bered. Like all restored monuments, they would lose much of their
charm and beauty ; but who would not sooner have the ancient temples
of Egypt, to some extent, as they once were, rather than the interesting
but melancholy remains that now make of the banks of the Nile a
sepulchre of the dead ?

And of the buildings of the Mamelukes, there would not remain the
same vestiges. They constructed upon different lines and knew nothing
of the greatness and solidity of the ancient Egyptians. The immense
monoliths of the past, the enormous blocks of stone employed in
their buildings — these we have said did not appeal to the Arab
sense of richness and grandeur. We have seen that they would not
even utilise any of the Egyptian columns and monoliths in building
their temples, though they lay around them in vast numbers, but
preferred the lighter architecture of Rome and Greece. Had it not
been so, many of the ruined cities of the Nile which are now the
delight of antiquarians, and where the modern tourist loves to pic-
nic, would have disappeared under the sovereignty of the Mamelukes.

We remember one day, par parenthese^ going up to Sakkara in a
Nile dahabiyeh crowded with many Americans and a few English.
Arrived at Mariette's house near the Step Pyramid : confronting
the most ancient building in the world, breathing the very air
of antiquity, silent with emotion before this mysterious monument
of the past : the whole company of tourists, almost without exception,
dismounted their donkeys, and began, with loud voices and eager
gestures, devouring oranges as if their very existence depended upon
the number to be consumed in a given time. The Step Pyramid —
the Tomb of Apis ? This was not what they had come for ; they
were " doing Egypt," and wished to make the time pass as pleasantly
as it would. We are not exaggerating the scene that took place,
or the motives of the travellers. It was the first time we found
ourselves in the company of a crowd, and it was the last —
romance, feeling, impression, all had to be sacrificed. The crowded
state of Cairo had compelled one to visit Sakkara in this manner, or
not at all. ' :~^

We shall return to this memorable day in due time and place.

The mosques of the second period were colossal in point of size ;
vast, rectangular buildings, adorned with cupolas and minarets, and
richly decorated within. This richness has, for the most part faded,
but may occasionally be faintly traced, especially in the magnificent
pavements of marble mosaic.

In many of these mosques we find representations of the folding
or pointed arch, very much as we see it in our Gothic monuments.

54

In the Lotus-Land,

When this form was first employed is unknown, but there are already
traces of it in the corridors of the Great Pyramid, built, as the reader
is aware, four thousand years before the Christian era.

It exists in many other buildings of antiquity, and in some of the
Byzantine churches at Constantinople. The pointed arch may be
seen in the early Mosque of Amrou in Old Cairo. There appears
to have been no period of time when it was not used in architecture.
It must have entered naturally into design, the result perhaps of
necessity, for it is more easily constructed than the semicircle.

The Arabian or Moorish horse-shoe arch is also much found, and,
perhaps more than anything else, gives a special and distinctive
type to Moorish architecture, for its effect is essentially Oriental.

^^NN^-" ■"'^;^^7>'

Outside the Rosetta Gate.

These horse-shoe portals, windows and arcades at once transport you
into another world. If you close your eyes, there at once rises up
before you a vision of exquisite Moorish buildings : such, for example,
as the wonderful Alhambra, which is nothing less than an architectural
poem, with its matchless courts and rooms, its long vistas of columns
and arcades lacing and interlacing each other ; its exquisite windows
which frame in the lovely views of the vast plains of the Nevada.

And these mosques and buildings of Old Cairo will not fail to
occur equally to the imagination.

Nothing can be more striking. The mind is amazed at their vastness.
In their silence and repose they seem to bear witness to a past world,
a dead-and-gone people who loved beauty of outline and grace of form,

I

In the Lotus-Land, 55

richness of colouring and decoration, pomp and magnificence, every-
thing, in short, that appealed to the senses. In contradistinction
to those ancient Egyptians who loved mystery and mysticism, all
that appealed to the soul and the intellect, the unseen, the immortal ;
who recognised the doctrines of punishment and reward with an
impartial sense of justice never exceeded in the most advanced days
of Christianity ; who, by their symbolism, their architecture, the
whole bent and influence of their existence, seemed to account this life
.as nothing worth in comparison with the next ; as if, thousands of years
before the words were spoken, they had foreshadowed, had known
by spiritual intuition, that the great apostle and martyr would
one day exclaim : "I esteem all things well lost if I can only win
Christ."

We may well ask : If this people, pagan, primitive, making their
own gods, without revelation, without the knowledge that the Divine
Creator, instead of being an all-powerful Deity whose wrath and anger
had to be appeased, was an Almighty Father whose name was Love,
and whose attributes were Long-suffering and Mercy : if they had
known this, we may well ask ourselves, to what stupendous efforts, to
what glorious results their religious fervour and enthusiasm might not
have led them.

The Arabs, of an essentially different nature, have left very different
traces behind them. The Egyptians were stable, but the wandering
life of the Arabs led to a love of change. Their impressions were
quickly roused, and quickly over. Their feelings were acute rather
than lasting ; the surface of their passions was easily disturbed, but
the disturbance was not profound. Nevertheless they were powerful,
full of individuality, with manners and customs, with ideas and con-
ceptions of art, that were peculiarly their own. We specially notice
this in their architecture. Not an outline, not an idea, would they
borrow from the Egyptians.

And so, in going to Egypt we are visiting two distinct worlds, and
it would be almost difficult to say which is the more interesting.

And yet, although the Arabs had quickly settled down in Egypt and
made themselves masters of the country, they were not to hold un-
disputed sway there. In taking Egypt they had not imposed a sinecure
upon themselves ; they could not fold their hands and recline on
a bed of roses, and take as assured the possession that had cost
them so much. To begin with, the siege of Alexandria had been
long and severe and had cost the followers of the false prophet many
lives. Heraclius had fled from the town, but it was still in some
degree wealthy and thriving, and the inhabitants were very unwilling
to fall into the hands of a strange and untried people. Alexandria
died gloriously, fighting to the last for independence. In the
invaders the Copts recognised people of another religion, which to
them meant persecution, perhaps death. The Jews, discontented,
murmuring and seditious though they were, felt that to fall into these

o

In the LottiS'Land. 57

strange hands was to risk life and liberty, and — what was almost
more dear to them than either — wealth.

So the siege lasted for fourteen long months, and the town was at
last taken by assault. It is said that 300,000 men commanded by
Amrou fell upon the ramparts ; blood ran as a river of water ; and
the Arab soldiers, dauntless, not to be repulsed, rushed in upon the
starving populace, the deserted palaces, with fanatical cries of "To
death ! To Paradise ! " which seemed to repeat themselves with a
thousand echoes and rise upwards to the very heavens. On the 22 nd
of December, 640, Alexandria fell.

Amrou was the lieutenant of the Caliph Omar, whose conquest was
thus established and whose reign began. He acted with discretion,
treated the conquered people with leniency, forbade plunder and
pillage, and so ingratiated himself with the Egyptians that an immense
number voluntarily ranked themselves under his banner, and became
disciples of Islam. In his reforms he followed in the footsteps of those
who had gone before ; the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, the Greeks and
Romans ; and endeavoured to profit by their experience and example.
He constructed a canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, paid
special attention to irrigation, maintained the dykes in perfect order,
devoting a third part of the revenues of the kingdom to these special
matters.

And when we consider the geographical position of Egypt, we see
how this feature had to take a first place in the affairs of the land.

Egypt itself is an enormous country, equal in size to two-thirds of
the extent of Russia in Europe ; but a large portion of this territory
is desert, incapable of cultivation, uninhabited. The true fruit-bearing
portion of Egypt is of very limited area. It lies entirely in the region
of the Nile, and in its whole extent is not as large as Belgium.

It is the narrowest country in the world, for only where the waters
of the Nile reach the plains in their overflow can seed be sown and
harvests gathered. This fruit-bearing soil begins at Khartoum, at the
confluence of the Blue and the White Nile, which takes its winding
course through Nubia down to the First Cataract, a distance of a little
under a thousand miles. Owing to defective irrigation, only a portion
can be cultivated.

This was Upper Egypt.

To the irrigation of Lower Egypt more care was given ; dykes
were cut, canals constructed, the marshy land was drained and
redeemed ; wealth and prosperity, the happiness and contentment of
the people, greatly increased. To all these essential matters Omar
gave special attention, and Egypt flourished. But Omar's life was
cut short. He had reigned only tw^o years when he perished by the
hand of an assassin, who thus avenged what he had considered a
personal insult.

Omar was succeeded by Othman, who had been an intimate friend
of Mohammed. He reigned eleven years, and was assassinated at the

58

In the Lotus-Land.

instigation of Aicha, the prophet's widow, possibly for some real or
supposed injury done to her in the days gone by, when he had used
his influence with Mohammed to her prejudice. Mohammed was not
scrupulous in the way he treated his wives — whom he divorced for no
special reason when it suited his purpose to do so. It was the laws
he made in accordance with his sensual nature which caused his
religion to appeal so strongly to the Eastern temperament. He must

Old Arabic Enamelled Glass Cup.

also have been of a singularly jealous nature, or the seclusion of the
harem would not have been made so complete and inviolable. But with
regard to Aicha, it is more probable that she caused Othman to be
put to death in the interest of Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet, who
succeeded him.

But the reign of Ali was a very disturbed one ; he was never to
know peace and security. One war followed another with Moawiyeh

In the Lotus-Land. 59

the governor of Syria, who had cast ambitious eyes upon Egypt, and
would not be satisfied without its possession.

This he finally obtained by the assassination of Ali in the year 66 1,
and the capital was transferred to Damascus.

Moawiyeh founded the dynasty of the Ommiades, which lasted for
a hundred years, and was distinguished by several remarkable events.

The Arabs besieged Constantinople, but were repulsed. The
conquest of Africa was completed ; the first Arab coin was struck ;
Spain was conquered by the Moslems, and there, as in Egypt, they
left wonderful traces behind them ; the first Nilometer was built on
the Island of Roda.

The dynasty had been established by frequent wars and much
bloodshed, but its reign was active and energetic, and the country
prospered. This was followed by the Abbaside dynasty, which took
its name from Aboo'l Abbas, a descendant of Mohammed's uncle,

in 754-

The battle which established this dynasty was fierce and strong, a
frightful conflict between the black flags of the Abbasides and the
white standards of the Ommiades. Merwan II., the last of the
Ommiades, was assassinated in a mosque at Alexandria ; and the whole
of his relations were invited to a great banquet in Damascus, and
there put to death by Aboo'l Abbas, who was thenceforth surnamed
the Sanguinary.

One member alone escaped, Abd-er-Rahman, who fled to Spain and
established the Ommiade dynasty at Cordova.

Bagdad was founded during the reign of the Abbasides in 754, and
became their capital. Haroun al Rasheed, surnamed the Just, was
of the dynasty, and has been handed down to posterity as the hero of
the Arabian Nights. We know by these tales how vivid an imagina-
tion the Arabs possessed, what a love of the marvellous, of splendour
and magnificence, bringing magic to their aid ; what tyrants and
autocrats these Caliphs were, and with what delightful ease and clear
conscience they decapitated people and confiscated their property.

It was a son of Haroun who opened the Great Pyramid of Cheops
in the hope of finding buried treasures — a hope destined to disap-
pointment. He was accompanied in his work by Dionysius, the
Patriarch of Antioch, and a large number of workmen. After much
labour they obtained an entrance into the corridors and chambers, and
were rewarded by discovering only a vase containing gold coin exactly
sufficient in amount to defray their expenses. The vessel itself is said
to have been an enormous emerald, and was taken to Bagdad.
Altogether the account sounds very much like an Arabian Nights'
story. The vase is supposed to have been secretly conveyed there by
Mamoon himself, in order that his expedition should not be stamped
as a complete failure. A mysterious slab was also found near the
vase, setting forth that the treasure contained in the vessel was to pay
for the work of the inquisitive king, but that if he searched further he

63

In the Lotiis-Land.

would find nothing more. At this period the sons of Charlemagne
were dividing Europe amongst themselves.

-liL^v'TJiV-

Then came the Tooloonide dynasty.

Its first monarch made himself governor of Egypt, declared him-

In the Lotus-Land. 6i

self independent of the Caliphs, and took possession of the whole
country. He was celebrated for his splendour and magnificence, his
wealth, and his success as a conqueror. He also built the wonderful
mosque in Cairo which bears his name.

Other and unimportant dynasties rapidly succeeded, until in 958
the Fatimites of Southern Africa conquered Egypt and began a
brilliant career. Everything prospered ; the population increased,
and the whole commerce of the Indies and the interior of Africa
flowed towards Egypt. Cairo became its capital. The town,
enlarged and beautified, rivalled Alexandria and Bagdad, and
numbered more than two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. A
university was established and a famous library, four hundred mosques
were built, magnificent wells, baths, and aqueducts. Cairo became
one of the chief cities of the world.

But the dynasty was not to last. Dissensions had been frequent,
the Christians had been persecuted, and many of them had turned
Musulmans. The Turcomans, who had been gradually rising into
power, attacked Egypt, but were unsuccessful for the moment.
Jerusalem was taken from the Turks and other Syrian towns, but the
Crusaders came forward under Godfrey de Bouillon, and recaptured
them.

The last of the Fatimites, unable to keep his kingdom, appealed
to the Turcomans and the Kurds, who came to his rescue, with
Amaury king of Jerusalem. The latter tried to gain possession of
Egypt, but as he approached Cairo, Fostat — that portion founded by
Tooloon and enlarged by the Fatimites — was burnt, and he had to
retire.

The Ayoubite dynasty commenced with the famous Saladin, and his
Saracen army. His career was brilliant and eventful. He obtained
possession of Syria as well as of Egypt, defeated the Crusaders at the
Battle of Hattin and retook Jerusalem, overthrowing the Christian king-
dom in Palestine. He was victorious in the Third Crusade, although
Frederick Barbarossa, Philip Augustus, and Richard Coeur de Lion
were against him in the field. By him the citadel and city walls of
Cairo were built, and the town was in many other ways improved.

But it was not until about the year 1220 that Egypt had very much
to do with the Crusaders ; soon after which the famous Mameluke
dynasty came into power.

The word Mameluke — or Mamluk — implies slave, and these Mame-
lukes were purchased by the :Sultans in the first instance and trained
as soldiers, to form a body guard and to increase the army. They
were born Christians, and at the age of seven or eight years were
brought over from Georgia and the Caucasus, by the slave-dealers of
Constantinople, and sold to the beys. They were fair children and
grew into strong, well-made men, but the land of Egypt was not
favourable to them. As a rule they married Circassians or strangers,
but their children usually died in youth. Where they married

62 In the Lotus-Land.

Egyptians, the race died out in the third generation ; so that the
Mamelukes had constantly to be reinforced by fresh importations
from the Caucasus.

These Circassians or Mamelukes eventually possessed themselves
of the kingdom, and then began a terribly unsettled period ; a time
of internal and external wars, of every species of crime, of revolutions,
of infinite trouble and disturbance, all tending to the downward
progress of the country.

During the two hundred and sixty-seven years that the dynasty
lasted, forty-seven monarchs sat upon the throne, and almost all of
them met with a violent death.

Yet it was these same Mamelukes who have left the most wonderful
architectural traces behind them ; and but for them, Cairo to-day
would be infinitely less beautiful and attractive than it is. They
were of two races — the Bahrites and the Circassians. The former
took their name from the Island of Roda, on the Nile or Bahr^
where they had their barracks. Bebars was the first and most famous
of these Sultans, and began his reign in 1260. Had they all followed
in his footsteps the reign of the Mamelukes might have been one of
the most distinguished in the annals of the country. Barkuk was
the first of the Circassians, and began to reign in 1382, from which
time the land was nothing but a series of civil wars and of frightful
atrocities. In 1 5 1 7, the dynasty was finally overthrown by Selim I.
of Constantinople, and Egypt became a Turkish Pashalic.

The Mamelukes were not exterminated or banished. Their
aristocracy was left to them upon certain conditions, and they still
held power and authority in the land. Selim endeavoured to
secure their allegiance by granting them favours. He created one a
pasha, twenty-four he made governors or princes of provinces ; he
organised a special corps of Mamelukes and these were the finest men
of his army.

The result of this was that they became too powerful, and in 1646,
the Mamelukes rose up, and by a sort of coup d'etat, obtained the
ascendency and declared themselves independent. In 1798, when
the French expedition took place, they were ruling selfishly and
despotically throughout the land.

Then came the Battle of the Pyramids under Napoleon. Seven
thousand Mamelukes were slaughtered, three thousand escaped into
Upper Egypt, twelve hundred fled to Syria. After them came the
English, and finally closed the chapter.

The reign of the Arabs was virtually over. That long line, which
had begun in the year 641, had gone through so many vicissitudes and
changes, had accomplished such wonderful results, had so transformed
the face of the country, the character of the people, was at an end.

And in visiting Egypt to-day, you are still surrounded by traces of
this singular, erratic, energetic and magnificent race. You wander
amidst the mosques of the Sultans, the tombs of the Caliphs, and

In the Lotus-Land, 63

you feel as if you had been transplanted into the region of the
Arabian Nights, where magic has been at work, and where a people
have existed without parallel on earth, almost belonging to some
other and fairer world than this. You lose yourself in a dream of
Oriental grandeur and sublimity. Every breath you draw in this
Eastern atmosphere seems impregnated with the incense of Arabian
spices, the perfume of roses. The longer you gaze, the greater
becomes the charm and fascination of your surroundings. You revel
in a perfect intoxication of sunshine and Eastern glory. You are
bewildered by these traces of the past, this realization of dreams and
thoughts that you had hitherto only known in Oriental literature ;
scarcely imagined could exist out of the poet's fancy.

But here the dreams and fancies are indeed embodied ; here are the
magic palaces, the wonderful skies ; you are steeped in rainbow hues ;
it is an earthly paradise — an Eastern paradise ; a paradise full of the
vestiges of the days gone by, distinguished by beauty and refinement ;
outlines that stand out against the sky with the utmost grace of con-
ception. The grandeur, the vastness, the mystic element of the ancient
Egyptians, all this is not in evidence. In place of it, you have the
refinement, the rich imagery, the fervent and vivid imagination of
an Eastern people, realized and embodied in a series of wonderful
buildings, that in conjunction with the charm of antiquity, and the
halo of romance thrown over them by their condition of partial ruin,
stand out matchless and solitary amidst the great artistic creations
of the world.

AMATA AND BENEVOLENTIA.

The sun of love shines on her ; all the air

Is warm with adulation ; only she
like marble statue, flushed and made more fair

By rosy radiance, still stands cold and free
From sign of yielding. Glad, and well aware

Of the most genial brightness, as a tree
Expands its leaves to meet the noon-tide glare,

So basks she in love's light contentedly.
Yet one who lives for ever in the shade.

Unloved, unsought, is more supremely blest ;

She loves, and in the loving finds her rest ;
Asking for naught again, is three times paid.

What matters outward gloom ? — The heart's close shrine

Is all aglow with colours half divine.

Emma Rhodes.

64

^'JENNY WREN."

By Ada M. Trotter.

" A LETTER from Robin ! " quoth Miss Sarah. " Now perhaps we
-^^ shall get to the bottom of this strange silence of his."

Miss Sarah, as she stood well in the light of the morning sun, was
not exactly a fascinating type of woman. She was tall and lank, her
face wore a severe expression, her eyes were keen and sharp. She
was the kind of person who never connects herself with those to
whom the " Thou shalt not " is aimed ; commandments passed over
her head to the feeble folk who cannot be a law unto themselves.
As an example. Miss Sarah went to church, and sat there unflinchingly
at her post in the equally grim, unflinching pew. Miss Sarah was a
leading spirit, but, in her own heart she acknowledged her limitations ;
in her scientific work, there were times when she had to stand aside
while her brother's deeply reflective, original brain made the de-
ductions which it took her hours of laborious work to follow. Miss
Sarah was no fool, she recognised her limitations, but within them she
was a tyrant, ruling Robin, her only relative, with a rod of iron, so
that outside of his work he scarcely dared express a contrary opinion
to that advanced by his sister. This does not prove that Robin was
necessarily a weakling in character, it is rather suggestive that Miss
Sarah could be — was very dominant.

Robin was less vigorous in physique than Miss Sarah, so an attack
of influenza brought him to the boundary-land of all knowledge, and
he was recalled only after anxious hours of watching ; then he was
sent for three months to the Riviera. Miss Sarah went on so far as
she was able with his scientific work, receiving suggestions occasionally
from the absent scientist ; but lately his brief letters had been more
brief than ever, so Miss Sarah perceived his handwriting to-day with
satisfaction.

" I'll read it as I take my breakfast," she soliloquised, slowly
cutting open the envelope.

Miss Sarah did read the letter, but her breakfast was sent away
untouched, while she paced the study with hasty strides, all but
swearing in her wrath.

" Dear Sarah, — I'm married. I daresay it will be nice for you
to have a woman's company sometimes when you are tired of your
work. I shall be home^next week. You will love Jenny, I am sure ;
she is very pretty and intelligent."

" When / want a woman's company," said INIiss Sarah, " I will
choose the woman. Married ! She is very pretty ! Oh, Robin, you

" Jenny Wren,'' 65

fool ! you fool ! Is there no man who can look below the surface,
and seek for more in woman than pretty looks ? Fool ! fool ! fool ! "

She stamped her foot with rage, a hideous expression convulsed her
features. Then she calmed herself, and glanced round the study at
the abstruse works lining the walls from floor to ceiling ; she re-
membered Robin's absent-minded habits, his intense application to his
work, and — smiled. It was a cruel, hard smile.

" Pretty, intelligent, loved ! My lady will have to be something
more than these to oust me from my place at Robin's right hand.
And — she can not, s^a// not ! "

It was a bright April day when Robin handed his young wife from
the carriage, and led her through the old-fashioned garden to the
threshold of his home. Miss Sarah, stiff and severe, stood at the
open door.

" Here is our little song bird, my little Jenny Wren," said the
philosopher, as deeply in love as a philosopher knows how to be.
" She is a sunbeam, and will make the old home cheerful for us sages."

" I don't like a noise," said Miss Sarah, harshly, giving Jenny a
cold hand to shake, " and I don't like changes. If you want
amusement and gaiety, you ought not to have married, Robin."

The brightness died out of the girl's young face ; she looked at
Robin for protection from this cruel tongue, but Robin, always
influenced by his sister's opinion, looked at the pink and white young
creature as though he realised all at once that she did not harmonise
with the surroundings — the dull, prim old home — the prim, precise
Miss Sarah.

" I am young," said Jenny's clear treble, trembling a little, " but I
can learn. At school they said I was quick, and — and — I mean to
help Robin, not hinder him."

Miss Sarah's laugh w^as aimed at this speech. It cut like a knife
into the sensitive girl's heart ; deriding such effort, such appalling
ignorance of the depth of knowledge required by one who would help
a scientist.

Robin should have interposed on Jenny's behalf, but Robin was
not of a sensitive temperament, and his abstruse studies had not
sharpened his perceptions. He had come to the wise conclusion also
by this time, that he had married Jenny as much for Sarah's sake as
his own ; and of course the women thus brought together would
love one another, so he strolled off to look at the pile of letters
awaiting him without a qualm, leaving Jenny to Miss Sarah's tender
mercies.

What Miss Sarah made the sensitive girl suffer in that brief hour,
a life-time of happiness could scarcely blot out ; but not a sign did
Jenny give of the pain she felt. White as a wraith, she accepted all
in silence — this was Robin's sister ; she had promised Robin to love
his sister.

VOL. LIV. F

66 " Jenny Wren.'"

" And," said Miss Sarah, finally, when the survey of the house was
over, " as you are so young and fond of amusement, / shall continue
to keep the keys, and do duty as housekeeper. You can make the tea
if you like — that's a fussy kind of thing I don't care for, people have
such whims about sugar and cream. Brains are intended for better
work than remembering such nonsense. Robin always has had to
drink his tea as I chose to make it at the moment. But you've got
nothing better to do, you can take it in hand."

A red spot burned in Jenny's cheeks ; her blue eyes gave a look
into Miss Sarah's face that affected the grim woman strangely. It was
a rebuke, the first the lady had ever received for years untold. She
pushed aside an obtrusive idea that the young creature before her,
notwithstanding her beauty, had plenty of character within this pink
and white envelope.

Any latent hope left to Jenny of being a comfort and help to
Robin in his work was soon destroyed. Determined not to be thrust
aside by Miss Sarah, she quietly entered the study, and made her way
to her husband's side. She bore a vase of sweet peas in her hand,
which she set beside the workers ; the fragrance from the cluster-roses
at her belt pervaded the room with their lovely messages. Miss
Sarah took no notice of the intruder, she went on with her work with-
out the quiver of an eyelid. Robin on the other hand lifted dreamy,
abstracted eyes, gazing at Jenny as though she were but a vision, not
in any way connected with his life. As she set down the vase of
flowers he appeared to collect his thoughts.

"Now, Robin," said she, with the beaming smile of youth and
hope, " I am ready to help you."

Robin awoke to reality, for the nonce the philosopher in love. He
took a sheet at random from a pile at his side, passed it over to her
with an indulgent smile.

" Copy that," said he.

Jenny sat down quietly. She did not intrude her personality. In
five minutes even Miss Sarah had forgotten she was there. In five
more minutes she had glided noiselessly away. Her page was copied
with exquisite neatness. Why had Jenny fled? Ere one line was
finished she had seen through Robin's artifice. It was a wholly un-
necessary piece of work ; he was treating her as a toy, a child. All
the woman in Jenny rose in rebellion, and she stole softly away —
never to return.

" Give me that page," said Miss Sarah's harsh voice, when Robin
exclaimed wonderingly, " Why, Jenny's gone away ! "

" She writes a good hand, better than you or I ; firm and neat,"
was the grim verdict. Robin did not hear it, he was deep in abstract
thought. Miss Sarah got up viciously, took the sweet peas and
tossed them out of the window into the garden, where Jenny passing
shortly afterwards found them wilting in the sun.

It was a terrible life to the young girl ; she felt as though in prison,

" Jenny Wren.'' 6/

not daring to alter so much as the position of one of the grim old
chairs. Everything in the house had its place, and the old servants,
jealous as Miss Sarah of changes, were quick to resent the slightest
innovation. Day by day plunged Robin deeper into his grand work
on astronomy ; he was scarcely conscious of claims on his heart ; he
might have been dead and buried so far was he beyond Jenny's power
of recall. Perhaps, like Miss Sarah, he too was beyond being affected
by commandments. He had bidden Jenny from the first to amuse
herself, and naturally his duty to her began and ended with the
kindly order.

Amuse herself ! There was not even a kitten on the premises, and
the yard dog was a vicious old beast that dragged at his chain, and
would have torn the new-comer to pieces had he been able to get loose.
The only amusement left for Jenny was to take long walks over the
moors, and this amusement palled to such a degree, that had Robin
watched her movements through his fine telescope with the same
interest with which he studied the far-off stars, he might have specu-
lated as to the nature of the crystals which sped in rapid succession
from her eyes, as she threw herself in an abandon of misery on the heather.
After the first few days Jenny never sang about the house, she
made no noise. Robin did not notice the change. The clear skies
were giving him chances, which he liad not had for years, of making
solar observations, and he worked unremittingly, scarce giving himself
necessary rest by day and by night. He claimed Sarah's help as a
matter of course, and such intense labour, and night watches, disagreed
with the grim woman's temper, which became so frigidly austere that
the sensitive-plant drooped in her atmosphere. Yet, withal, Sarah
had eyes ; she saw everything that Robin was blind to, and, as the
servants all agreed, she had never been so outrageously cross in her
life.

A pile of cards had been gradually accumulating during the last
few weeks. Miss Sarah turned them over with some contempt — still,
she knew Robin must keep up with the world, and friends cannot be
absolutely neglected.

" Robin," she said, " these calls must be returned."
" Well," said he, " why not ? Jenny can return them."
" No," said Jenny, in a clear low tone. " I will not."
" She is right," said Sarah, calmly. " You must go with her.
Take to-day ; it is fine ; order the carriage early. The ' Bridges '
live eight miles off, they are old friends ; you can go there first. If
you are in time for lunch so much the better ; they will be over-
joyed."

" But, Sarah, could not you " began Robin.

" I am not Jenny's husband," said Sarah, acidly. " If a man
marries he must expect to have to go out with his wife on occasion.
Don't attempt to put these calls off on me. Besides, you've done
too much night work lately, and we shall have you ill again and off

F 2

68 ''Jenny Wren,"'

to the South, and Heaven knows what other absurdity 3'ou may
perform ! "

" He can scarcely marry another wife," said Jenny, with cool
scorn ; " he has already made the one irretrievable blunder."

Miss Sarah carefully put on her spectacles and peered at the young
bride.

"You'd better go and get yourself ready for the trip. Take a
warm shawl ; it's cold on the moors," said she, in her strident tone.
Then, without another word, went down to the study and set to work
to copy Robin's observations of the night before.

Presently she heard Jenny's laugh. It had a pathetic ring in its
young freshness. Miss Sarah frowned ominously, she rose and w^ent
to the window ; the carriage was at the door, and Jenny had just
taken her seat by Robin, who was smiling down at her in a wholly
unphilosophic manner which suffused the girl's pale face with a glow
of lovely pink. Miss Sarah stood frowning at the pair, portentously ;
she had never looked so severe in her life, but, hidden behind the
curtain, her face was not visible to dethrone joy from Jenny's heart.
When the happy couple were out of sight, she went back to her work,
but somehow she could not fix her mind on what she was doing. In
less than an hour she seemed to form a sudden resolution ; she left
the study, and, with determined tread, made her way to Jenny's room,
where the young girl alone had undisputed sway.

Miss Sarah knew she had no right there, but then she was above
the commandments, above being affected by rules which govern ordi-
nary folk, so she entered without hesitation and proceeded to rummage.

On a table by the window was a neat pile of school-books, evidently
called into daily requisition. Miss Sarah sniffed contemptuously.

"Out of date centuries ago," she muttered, "just the usual science
smattering dealt out at girls' schools." Then she came upon a list
of studies, formidable enough in Jenny's eyes, absurd in those of the
experienced student ; but this was soon dropped, for Miss Sarah's
ferretting glance had caught sight of a diary.

" Bless me, what a baby, to keep a diary ! " sneered Miss Sarah, as
she opened the sacred pages without a qualm. But as she read, the
sneer died away from her grim countenance ; here she found the cruel
sufferings Jenny had endured painted in glowing words. She saw
herself just as she appeared in these young eyes, an odd sensation to
Miss Sarah, almost as though she had been dead and : buried and had
returned to her old haunts, seeing with spirit eyes instead of " through
a glass, darkly."

" It is strange," wrote Jenny, after this relation, " that, harsh and
severe as she uniformly appears to be, there is something about her I
could love, if she would let me. But she is above being loved. She
is so strong, so sufficient to herself. I dared one night to kiss her ;
she did not like it " — " Yes, she did, though," interpolated Miss Sarah
— " and I shall never dare take such a liberty again. Was she ever

** Jenny Wren.'''' 69

young ? and did she ever care for flowers and sunshine ? Had she
ever a lover ? "

With a sudden snap Miss Sarah turned the page.

" If I only knew what they were doing, what this great scientific
work was to prove ; but they never deign to mention the theme in my
hearing ! Night by night they watch the stars ; how I long for the
opportunity ! I do not know anything ; but I can learn. I hate
science ! It makes people so hard, so ;self-satisfied, and shuts them
within such narrow walls. The stars are more to Robin than his
wife ; he cares for the smallest information he can gain concerning
them, but for human beings he does not care. It is nothing to him
that I suffer, that I long for a wider, broader life. I am a prisoner
chained to a cruel doom. Were I to be burned at the stake, death
would put an end to my miseries ; but here am I doomed to death in
life. My imagination is repressed ; my heart is killed in this icy
atmosphere ; my youth is dying with my heart. Oh, Robin, Robin !
Is not the human soul eternal as the heavens ? You should help me,
Robin, to a higher flight amongst your stars ; read me, Robin, with
as deep a longing for intelligence of what is hidden in my heart, as
you read the skies ! "

Miss Sarah threw the diary aside ; something very queer was touching
her eyes with a film. A vigorous rubbing brought her keen vision to
order, and it showed her some dainty needlework in a basket on the
table. Miss Sarah peered at it long ere she mastered the purpose of
the production. It was a cap of real Mechlin lace, and evidently, the
grim woman perceived, intended for herself. She put it on — very much
awry, it is true, but to her own satisfaction, admiring the effect with
a simplicity of soul pertaining only to the scientific. Then she set it
back in its place, and fingered the few knick-knacks Jenny's scanty
purse had enabled her to purchase when abroad. She scowled severely
at the muslin curtains and the general air of elegance with which the
girl had invested her poor little properties, then suddenly strode out
of the room and returned to her work. She frowned so much for the
rest of the day that even the old servants were alarmed, and went
about their work fearing an unwonted explosion.

When the absent pair came home in the gloaming, and Jenny's
laugh, merry now, without that pathetic ring which had weighted its
freshness in the morning, startled the gloomy echoes into serious
remonstrance, Miss Sarah's rather bass voice was heard from the open
Iiall door.

" Oh, you're back, are you ? I want my tea. I am used now to
Jenny's way of making it, and I can't fancy it otherwise."

Grim as was this speech, it struck like a warm wave on Jenny's ear.
.She fairly ran indoors.

" I'll be ready in a moment, Sarah," said she, and her step went
blithely up to her room.

When she returned she carried her work-basket on her arm, glancing

70 * ' Jenny Wren . ' '

from its contents rather timidly at Miss Sarah. That grim woman
was seated in a stiff arm-chair by the fire-place ; she had an antiquated
piece of canvas in her lap, and was threading a needle, frowning
hideously at the difficulties presented by the ravelling silk.

" Get out of my light ! " said she, with severity, as she chased the
needle with increasing asperity and absorbed interest. Jenny stood
aside, exclaiming with rapture at the exquisite colours overflo\^dng
Miss Sarah's black apron.

" Florentine," snapped the austere one. " I began it twenty years
ago ; it's about time I finished it."

There was something in Miss Sarah's manner that might have
answered one of Jenny's questions had she been on the alert — " Had
she ever a lover ? " ; but of course the girl had no idea that her sacred
diary had been overhauled.

" For my part," said Miss Sarah, as she sipped her tea, " I am
inclined for a social evening ; I'll get on with my work, and Jenny can
sing to us presently."

Robin looked his surprise, his utter bewilderment ; Jenny flushed.
What strange development was this ? A social evening in this gloomy
house !

" Tell me where you went to-day," continued Miss Sarah, conjuring
a smile to her severe lips. " I suspect we shall have all the world
here after your wife, Robin."

Robin rubbed his head ruefully. The look he cast at Sarah was
hopeless, bewildered. She who always helped him out of his difficulties
was now apparently bent on plunging him into deep waters.

Jenny was setting a few finishing touches to the lacework ; then,
with the sweetest grace in the world, made her presentation.

" Humph ! " said Miss Sarah. " You'd better put it on for
me. Which is front and which is back ? I'll wear it for best, and
you can make me something for everyday."

"Just what I was longing to do," said Jenny, accepting this
ungraceful speech with delight, reading in it what she valued more
than effusive thanks. Her mood became charmingly bright. Miss
Sarah watched her pretty ways with severe attention, and her needle
fairly whizzed through the canvas, cobbling the artistic pattern cruelly
as her keen brain made some deductions, leading her to a conclusion
which would have stranded Robin a helpless, shipwrecked mariner had
he been able to follow his sister's lead. But Robin was dreamily
listening to Jenny's prattle, and afterwards, soothed by the pretty
ballads she sang to him, dozed by the fireside.

Next morning Jenny felt less left out in the cold than usual,
for Miss Sarah turned back at the door to say, in her rough way —

" When we've got these calculations all right, you had better come
and do some copying for us. Robin writes so badly the printers
can't decipher his meaning, and, as for me, I'm not much better ;
you're quiet, quick, and careful."

^^ Jenny Wren.'' 71

With a nod, almost a threat at failure of such qualities, Miss Sarah
vanished, leaving Jenny so light of heart that she had to stop herself
several times in a glad rill of song.

" She warbles like a bird," observed Miss Sarah.

" Who ? Eh — what ? " from the absorbed Robin.

" I say Jenny's voice is sweet as a blackbird's," said Miss Sarah
severely.

" I did not hear anything," said Robin, as he fell back into his well
of thought.

But in the afternoon the door-bell rang incessantly ; all the world
seemed to come to call on Robin's charming wife. Jenny appeared
at the study door; one look at Robin, a warning glance from
Miss Sarah, and she retired to do the honours alone. When she
gave a graphic description of the callers in the evening. Miss Sarah
heard her with a thoughtful rather than severe expression. At one
name she gave a grim " Humph ! "

" Dacres back again ! " cried Robin. " We must invite him to
spend an evening. You remember Dacres at Florence, Sarah ? "

There was not a doubt on the subject in Miss Sarah's snappish
" Of course."

" So you are going to be very gay — dear me," said Robin. " If you
accept all the invitations showered broadcast over us, you will have
your time cut out for you."

He was twirling a card in his hand ; " Basil Dacres " was engraved
thereon. Miss Sarah took it from him.

" Ah, I see it is the son. I knew there was a son. Where did you
meet him, Jenny ? "

" He knew my aunt," said Jenny, colouring, " and he was engaged
to be married to my cousin Susan ; then — he jilted her."

" Fell in love with the first pretty face he saw, I suppose," growled
Miss Sarah, guessing shrewdly enough what Jenny was too modest to
tell. " Just like his father."

" I shall certainly go and see old Dacres," said Robin, whose mind
was far away as usual, and who did not notice Jenny's confusion
or Miss Sarah's remark. But in a few moments Robin's interest
in his old friend was forgotten in his work.

Jenny was intensely proud. She did not choose to go out under
the wing of the rector's wife, since wherever she went she was met by
pitying looks, for gossip was rife about the peculiar habits of the
scientists, and gossip was certain that this pale pretty creature was
cruelly neglected, even ill-treated, at home. Then the advent of Basil
Dacres overwhelmed her with difficulties, for he was a vain man,
always ready with sentimental nothings, and wherever Jenny went
followed in her train. Jenny gave up her long walks over the moors,
for Basil seemed to pervade them far and near, and at length kept
within the very narrow boundaries of the prim old garden, denying
herself to all visitors indiscriminately. Here in the arbour the young

72 *' Jenny Wren.'*

creature ate her heart out in the dull dead life, and gave up, one by
one, the visions hope had held before her eyes — of domestic happiness
and of intellectual growth. At length she accepted a fresh vision,
which was a natural growth of this death in life. Robin did not want
her ; she would go away somewhere and work for the world. She
would not try to be happy — happiness was not for her — but she might
be of service to others. She would be a missionary and go out to India
to teach the poor w^omen in the Zenanas ; but when poor Jenny got
as far as India, away from Robin, she usually dissolved in tears in
misery words would not voice.

Sometimes the rector with his kindly wife penetrated the barriers
set up to keep them out, descended on Jenny in the arbour, and
dragged her forth to some party or picnic ; but Jenny returned from
such excursions more wretched than ever, and persisted in erecting her
barriers stronger than before.

Miss Sarah watched the girl grow pale and wan with a feeling
of irritation for which she could not account.

" You don't go out enough," she said, not unkindly ; " you want air
and exercise."

Jenny made no reply. Air and exercise would not heal the
wounds in her sore heart, she thought, her clear eyes — faded as
her cheeks — gravely meeting the penetrating gaze of Miss Sarah.

" What's this ? Dacres' writing, eh ? Picnic to the old Castle
to-morrow. You have not seen the ruins, Jenny ? "

" I have seen nothing," said Jenny gravely ; " but that does not
make any difference. I shall not go."

Jenny went languidly into the garden. Sarah stood by the window
and watched her fair head until it was lost amidst the ungainly shrubs.
She frowned severely, and instead of joining Robin in the study, put
on her stiff best bonnet and went forth to call on some old busybodies
from whom she knew she should hear some home-truths. She came
home remarkably cross ; home-truths strike none the less hard
because those concerned consider themselves superior to such
generalisations.

" By the way," said Robin, as they dined, " Dacres and the rector
bearded me in my den this afternoon — made me promise to let
Jenny join the picnic to-morrow. Of course I refused for you, Sarah.
You don't care for such things, or I ; besides which, we have not
a minute to spare. I am dreadfully behind-hand with those proofs,
and those men detained me this afternoon ; I lost an hour at
least."

Miss Sarah, still very cross, w^as staring into her wine-glass, and
made no answer.

" I do not wish to go without you and Sarah," said Jenny, a stern
expression settling on her pale face.

" Oh, if you wait for us," said Robin good-temperedly, " I fear the
summer will pass by before you get an opportunity to see anything."

''Jenny Wren.''' 71

Jenny seemed as though she were making a great effort to speak,
but, as she raised her eyes, she met the keen glance in Miss Sarah's,
and her Hps trembled in silence.

" It has not occurred to you, I suppose, Robin, that Jenny seems
to avoid all kinds of pleasure parties ? " asked Sarah, as they took
their places at the telescope an hour later.

" I don't like them myself," said Robin tranquilly. " Still, she
can't very well get out of this, and young people often have fads and
fancies."

" I imagine some of your wife's fads might be worth your attention,
Robin," said Sarah grimly. " However she happened to fall in love
with you, I don't see. I should think she would fall out quickly
enough at your neglect of her."

" Neglect ? " cried Robin. " Why, I let her do just as she likes ;
I never interfere with her wishes in anything."

" That definition is equally good," said Miss Sarah snappishly.
But Robin was already lost in the trackless universe overhead ; Miss
Sarah's sarcasm was not audible to ears that strained for the music of
the " wandering stars."

The next day Jenny invaded the study — a lovely vision enough, in
her rustic gown and broad hat, the sunlight seemed concentrated
about her ; but the young face surrounded by this halo was anxious
and careworn.

" Robin, dear Robin, can I speak to you ? "

" Eh, Jenny ? " Robin was still in the clouds.

" Robin, the rector's wife is ill, and Mr. Dacres has sent Basil to
fetch me to go with their party, and I do not want "

" Very kind of Dacres, very attentive. Just like him ! " said Robin
absently, ceasing to see Jenny, the sunlight, or aught else an this
mundane sphere.

Jenny drew back ; a stern glance, almost of contempt, hardened
her lovely features ; she paused, as though to assure herself that Robin
was indeed oblivious of her existence, then she left the room slowly,
deliberately. At the door she paused again, her dry lips spoke but
once. " Good-bye, Robin ! " and these words came soft as a breath,
scarcely audible to the sharpest ears. Then she closed the study door
and slowly set foot on the stairs.

She did not hear the hasty stride which annihilated the distance
between the desk by the window and the door, nor did she notice the
noisy click of the latch ; but she turned at the sound, the music of a
rough deep voice.

" Just set my cap straight, Jenny, and wipe the ink off my forehead
— that quill of mine spatters so. Do I look very frowsy ? "

"You look," said Jenny — " you look like — like an angel ! " And
she suddenly put out her arms and clung about the grim woman's neck.

" Robin's a fool 1 " said Miss Sarah grimly to herself. " But, thank
Heaven ! I've got more than my share of wits."

VOL. LIV. F*

74 " Jenny Wren.''

" So good of you to come for us," she was saying the next moment
to the self-possessed young man, whom she scanned with a curious
scrutiny, as he impatiently glanced from her to Jenny. " I have not
seen the Castle for years. Robin and I have worked too hard lately,
so we have depended on our good rector and his wife to take care of
our song-bird here. But I need change, and shall take every chance
that offers for an outing in future."

Basil Dacres made polite response ; but his lowering brow spoke of
anything rather than joy at the prospect of improving his acquaintance
with Miss Sarah.

" Jenny — I mean Mrs. Robin — and I are old friends," began Basil.

" Very delightful," said Miss Sarah amiably. " You were engaged
to her cousin, I believe, at one time. Is that your dog-cart ? Jenny
will sit behind, she does not mind where she rides ; but I take up a
great deal of room, and, besides, I see you have a great deal to tell
me about your first acquaintance with Mrs. Robin."

Jenny, who was deftly arranging Miss Sarah's bonnet and mantle^
gave the grim woman's hand a sudden squeeze. Perhaps the twinkle
in the keen eyes dissecting the enraged young man before her, was
suggestive of enjoyment in Miss Sarah at finding herself thus dominant.
Basil felt himself ludicrous, especially as an imploring glance from his
dark eyes met with a response utterly unprecedented from Jenny — a
merry rill of laughter ; for he was not to know that Miss Sarah's inter-
position meant a reprieve to Jenny — that the little portmanteau ready
packed upstairs would never see India or the Zenana Mission field —
that Miss Sarah's grim smile into the troubled blue eyes had carried
healing to a sorely-wounded heart. As to himself, and his tendency
to play the lover to the first pretty face that fell within his horizon,
there was no fear that Jenny would be annoyed by his absurd senti-
mentalisms with Miss Sarah as a rock of strength by her side.

The splendid horses distanced the rest of the party, and, if Miss
Sarah had one constitutional source of timidity which rendered her a
^vreck of herself when seated behind a pair of spirited horses, Basil
Dacres was never the wiser. Jenny, sitting at the back of the carriage
by herself, sang gaily in a light-hearted blithe manner that brought a
smile to her grim relative's lips. What a feast these lovely woodlands
after the dull, dreary house and garden — what a joy these rippling
streams ! And, oh ! the drifting shadows upon the sun-glinted forest
paths.

Miss Sarah meanwhile drew the young man out upon a variety of
subjects, which he rarely brought into conversational play.

" So you are not a classical scholar ? Your father was. We fell out
on the subject twenty-five years ago. He would not learn any modern
languages — a great mistake. A most obstinate man on some subjects."

" He is indeed," said Basil, remembering some late passages in
which he himself had gone, as he graphically related to friends, " all
to pieces," in discussions of his future with his parent. But the Castle

^' jfenny Wren.'' 75

came into sight, and the ladies descended at the entrance to the
woods surrounding it, to wait for the rest of the party.

" You'd better give me your arm, Jenny," said Miss Sarah, " I'm a
little stiff with sitting in such a cramped position."

So when the rest of the party came up, they found Jenny beaming
and happy as a bird, under Miss Sarah's wing. The meeting between
Miss Sarah and Mr. Dacres the elder was significant ; to say the least,
the glances exchanged were belligerent. But later in the afternoon,
when interest in the ruins had given place to interest in the gipsy-
kettle, Mr. Dacres deliberately crossed swords with his enemy.

" I brought him up on your principles," said he, nodding towards
Basil. " He is modern in every respect ; you would not undertake
the charge, so I struggled with the problem unaided."

" Humph ! Rather a dandy ! " said Miss Sarah, reflectively, " but
I dare say he'll improve."

" There's room for it," growled Dacres the elder, with his mental
eye on the extravagant habits of his son. "You have worn well,
Sarah ! " There was a tender intonation in the words which received
a belligerent glance from the grim woman.

" Science agrees with me," she replied, " but you " perhaps her

eyes spoke for her.

" Yes ! I'm too fat ! I really can't help it, Sarah. It ages a man
though, undoubtedly. I've had too little exercise out in India."

And Jenny sitting on the moss beside Miss Sarah, leaning against
her rock of strength, sent forth her merry laugh and innocent jests
from this safe covert, little thinking that the stout old gentleman,
conversing so agreeably, had once been an ardent lover, and that
Miss Sarah had been the object of his affection.

Meantime the tide of gossip was turned for ever.

"Why, I thought they were at daggers drawn, and it is clear Mrs.
Robin and her sister-in-law are inseparable."

A week or two later Miss Sarah came down to breakfast ready
equipped for a journey ; after making a pretence of eating, she
suddenly rose and went out. She was gone without a word of fare-
well, and left no address. Robin stared helplessly at Jenny, when at
length they realised that she really had departed bag and baggage.

" I am so busy," said he. " What in the world shall I do ? It is
most inconsiderate of Sarah. All those proofs to look over" — he
pointed to several unopened bundles. " Can you come and help me,
Jenny ? "

With Jenny's entrance into the study, Robin became a mere working
machine no longer. Little by little his mind broadened to human
interests, and he watched the changes brought into his precincts by
this busy little woman with a feeling that his youth had begun at last,
and that life held a charm of which he had hitherto been unconscious.
Still he missed Sarah's fine mind and hard-working quality, and, had

76 ^^ Jenny Wren.''

he known where to find her, would have implored her to return to the
old harness. But Sarah was gone, and no word was heard from her
for two years.

Her return was as unexpected as her departure. She arrived at the
garden-gate and walked into the house. Everything was changed, the
prim lines were broken, even the cross old yard-dog was gone. Miss
Sarah nodded her grim head at the elegance with which she was
surrounded, then her eyes twinkled on Robin who was watching her
with some anxiety.

" I like it," she said. " I declare Robin you look twenty years
younger. What's the matter, Jenny ? "

" Why," said Jenny, " I see Mr. Dacres at the garden-gate ; do
Robin let him in."

" Oh, he's there, is he ? " said Sarah, tossing her head, with an odd
smile twitching her lips.

"And Sarah, you are grown so — so handsome," said Jenny, her
eyes reading Paris at its best in the elegant morning dress draped
about Miss Sarah's angular form.

" You'd better let him in, Robin," observed Miss Sarah, without
noticing Jenny's remark. " He is not obstinate, at least so he says —
only persistent, and if he means to find me, find me he will."

" But Sarah ! " from Jenny.

" We were married soon after I left you," said Sarah. " He followed
me, though I left no word as to my destination. We met again at
Florence — and made it up — you know we quarrelled quarter of a
century ago. He says I did him injustice, I thought he cared for a
pretty girl there ; he says he never cared for any one but me. I am
bound to believe him, since he is a most obstinate man, he never
gives up a point. Oh, there you are, eh ! I came round to ask Jenny
if she'd come and see why our drawing-room looks like a curiosity
shop instead of a living-room. She's got the knack of setting things
at ease."

"And I have come," said Mr. Dacres, with his cordial smile, "to
ask for a brother and sister's congratulations on what I think I may
call the happiest, if the meridian hours of my life."

77

A HARD MAN'S CHARITY.

" A LADY to see you, sir."

^^ Stay, Randall ! A lady, do you say ? "

" Yes, sir."

" Then show her in."

It was half-past four on a gloomy November afternoon, and the
gas was already lit in Howard Vyner's private office. Vyner himself
sat before a pile of correspondence through which he was patiently
wading, but his cold, inscrutable features showed little annoyance
at the untimely interruption. The door opened two minutes later,
and a lady, plainly dressed in dark, well-fitting garments, entered.
She wore no veil, so that Vyner, at his first glance, was able to
scrutinise her pale, delicately-formed face. She was young he
decided at once, and moreover painfully nervous, nor did his calm
interrogative manner conduce to set her more at ease. Not a solitary
example of embarrassment provoked by Howard Vyner's presence
was the newcomer by any means ; he was accustomed to inspire his
numerous clerks and dependents with obsequious awe, and therefore
regarded the intruder's excitement with little surprise.

" My time is Hmited," at length he said ; " if you wish to speak
to me "

The girl, for she was but little more, raised her dark eyes to his
face, and tremulously hazarded her plea.

" You employ a great number of clerks, a few of them lady clerks
— at least, I was told so. I have made many inquiries, being in
search of daily employment, and wishing very earnestly to obtain some
at once. My circumstances are hopelessly bad ; but I write a good
hand, and have received an excellent education. I believe there are
one or two vacancies in your office at the present time, and I thought
— I hoped "

Vyner moved impatiently in his chair. This soft-voiced applicant
was evidently not hardened to her task. He had interviewed others
on a like errand by scores, dismissing them with the same cool
indifference with which he tore in pieces the letters lying now in his
waste-paper basket, and experiencing no passing regret at their dis-
appointment. He was a man in the prime of life, his age num-
bering only forty years, yet few had become so eminently successful
within so brief a period. Twenty years before Vyner's lot had been
no whit more enviable than that of each hard-worked clerk bending
over his desk in an adjoining room ; but a man possessed of his
indomitable perseverance and brilliant business capacities will some
way or other invariably find scope for the display of his exceptional
talents ; and the influence and substantial aid of wealthy friends had

y8 A Hard Man's Charity.

placed more immediately within his power the attainment of that
success to which he had devoted his whole life and intellectual
faculties. There were those in Farringham who ventured to sneer
at the glowing prosperity of the wealthy manufacturer who had sprung
up in their midst, and was making his thousands by hard work and
industry. But in the breasts of his poorer brethren contempt gradually
gave place to envy. Yet one and all, from the highest to the lowest
— from his well-to-do neighbours, who strove to patronise him, down
to the meanest subordinate in his employ — secretly and heartily dis-
liked and feared Howard Vyner. In short, he had acquired a bad
name in the town. He was a hard man, they said ; a man who
ground down his dependents and boasted that he had bestowed no
copper of his hardly-won wealth on the whining beggars at his gate ;
a man who scoffed at Christian charity, and bade everyone look to his
own hand for relief. Moreover, said the townsfolk, he was a man
without a creed or religion ; but he was rich, and the world was before
him, and Farringham abased itself humbly at his feet, and despised
the man while it worshipped his gold.

Vyner regarded the woman before him with faint curiosity. Had
she rehearsed her acquirements with the vulgar assurance with which
he was only too familiar, or besought his leniency in the repulsive
accents of the professional beggar, he would have summarily dis-
missed her, maybe to abject poverty and want. But, happily for her
suit, she did neither. Even her nervousness had partially deserted
her, and she was awaiting his answer with an expression of half-
hopeful eagerness on her pale face.

" You imagine you could occupy such a post with competency ? "
Vyner asked, after a pause.

" I am almost sure that I could," she answered ; involuntarily
clasping her small gloved hands.

" Then you are aware what the requirements are," he continued,
still in the same calm, business-like tone ; and forthwith, in a few
w^ords, enlightened her as to her probable duties.

" And the hours ? " queried the girl timidly, " they are long, I
believe."

" From nine till six."

" Ah ! how late." An expression of intense sorrow flitted over her
face that did not escape Vyner's critical eye ; but she listened eagerly
while he briefly entered into other particulars.

" It is doubtful whether you will be able to accept the post as a
permanency," he concluded; "your inexperience being an undeniable
drawback, but I think you may as well make the attempt. I employ
several other lady clerks, but they are all extremely competent and ex-
perienced. However," a trifle less coldly as her face flushed and her

eyelids fell," your success depends entirely upon yourself, Miss "

" Delorme — Alice Delorme." Then her diffidence vanished. Raising
her dark and beautiful eyes to Vyner's own she said earnestly : " I am

A Hard Man's Charity. 79

very grateful to you, Mr. Vyner. I can never thank you sufficiently for
giving me a chance to help myself, but I assure you you have lightened
my heart of a heavy burden to-day. Although I am only live-and-
twenty, I have passed through a veritable sea of trouble, and I do
not mind confessing to you that poverty has to-day stared me in the
face. Forgive me ; you are busy, and I am claiming your interest
without thought."

Alice Delorme's fellow-clerks would have opened their eyes in un-
qualified amazement had they been listeners to her graceful expres-
sions of gratitude. Howard Vyner himself had difficulty in suppress-
ing the habitual smile of cynicism which invariably greeted effusive
or emotional overtures, of which he was but seldom the recipient.
He looked once again at the girl's tall, slender figure and thoughtful
countenance, attractive by reason of its sweetly sensitive lips and large
lustrous eyes. Hers was a good face — he thought involuntarily —
almost beautiful too, but with a quiet unassuming beauty that would
strike but few observers. She was different in some way from the crowd
of poor, commonplace, aspiring applicants whom he sent away with
ill-concealed disgust day after day. He liked her face ; he was
vaguely attracted by her manner, and he felt glad all at once that he
had not been brusque and overbearing to her as to all the others.
Then, with a half-smile of scornful reproof, Vyner pulled himself
together and recollected suddenly who he was, and that the girl
confronting him in the glare of the gaslight was already one of his
dependents.

" Miss Delorme," he said carelessly, dragging pens and ink forward,
" will you give me your address before you go ? And I omitted to
mention that, owing to press of correspondence, I shall be glad if you
will be at the office on Monday morning without fail."

" Certainly," replied Miss Delorme promptly, and quickly drawing
off her glove she walked to the desk and wrote down in round, even
characters, " Alice Delorme, 2 1 Queen Street." " I trust you will be
satisfied with me," she said with a friendly little smile — a smile that
was the prettiest thing Howard Vyner had seen for many a long day
A moment later Randall appeared, and Miss Delorme drew on her
glove and quickly left the office.

" A new clerk, Randall," said his master briefly. '' She begins
work on Monday."

Randall had a good look at the " new broom " when Monday
arrived, and was not long in deciding that she would give satisfaction.
He had no great faith in female clerks himself, this being the sole
point on which he and his master disagreed ; but being a man of dis-
cernment he speedily discovered that Alice Delorme possessed three
qualities essential to her work. She was business-like, industrious,
and reserved.

Howard Vyner was in the habit of shifting the supervision of his
offices from his own shoulders on to those of his head clerk, so that

So A Hard Man's Charity.

his presence was rarely required ; but upon some pretext or other he
found it necessary to look in on his clerks more than once during the
days of that first week of Alice Delorme's probation. The first time
that he did so Miss Delorme raised her head and granted him the
full gaze of her beautiful eyes. They were instantly lowered, however,
but not before Vyner had experienced an unaccountable sensation of
interest and attraction. The new-comer accomplished her duties
satisfactorily, and was apparently sincere in her efforts to please.

This much Randall reported to Mr. Vyner, who listened with an
air of careless indifference, and promptly administered ia check to his
loquacious subordinate. Truth to tell, Vyner rebelled at the satis-
factory report. He said to himself that Alice Delorme was too much
of a lady to sink to the level of an ordinary office drudge, and the
interest that her advent had aroused within him gave place to a
feeling of disappointment. Day after day, week after week, he would
enter the office, and see the row of heads bent diligently over their
accustomed wcrk, but never again did Alice Delorme raise her care-
fully lowered eyelids ; and Vyner — the heartless cynic of the world —
chafed at her indifference.

" Randall," he said, one day a few weeks later, " here's an important
letter that I wish sent off at once. Just ask Miss Delorme to step in
here."

The previous day Miss Delorme had been absent, and Vyner felt
ridiculously aggrieved at the incident. He did not attempt to analyse
the various sensations of annoyance and restlessness to which he had
lately become a victim, or to battle with the disinclination for mental
labour which was fast rendering him lackadaisical and slothful. For
twenty years and more he had struggled for the success which was
now assured to him. To obtain that success he had relentlessly
cultivated the sordid desire for wealth to the exclusion of all higher
and nobler aims. He had gloried in the knowledge that Farringham
envied and condemned him ; he had boasted with a thrill of
egotistical pride of his unwavering perseverance in business, and his
contemptuous disdain for the poor and weak-hearted. He had
laughed at the supplicants for alms, and revelled in the luxury and
indulgences afforded him by the wealth he had justly earned. He
had lived in comfort while the poor were starving around him, with
no domestic ties to soften his heart and develop the sterling qualities
of his hard and unlovable nature. Success was his goal, and success
had been lavishly granted him. And yet, twenty years' fierce grapple
with the world, twenty years' frantic pursuit after gold, had left one
solitary corner of his heart vulnerable.

The office door opened, and in the strong gaslight Vyner saw the
face of Alice Delorme. It was altered — different. Her cheeks
pallid with long and exhaustive weeping, her eyes downcast, her
whole bearing crushed and humiliated.

" You wanted me," she said, and paused.

A Hard Man's Charity, 8i

" Yes ; I wanted you," Vyner repeated coldly. " It is a month or
more since you entered my office, Miss Delorme, and I believe you
have overcome any early difficulty in your duties. Do you still wish
to continue them, or is the work too onerous for you ? "

" I do not dislike it," she answered passively.

" You probably find the long hours a strain on your health. You
are looking ill," hazarded Vyner more solicitously.

" I am quite well."

" Then you have no wish to resign the post ? "

" None whatever." She raised her eyes for the first time, struggling
with a passing emotion. " I was unavoidably detained at home
yesterday," she said apologetically, ''otherwise I should not have
neglected to come. Thank you, I am glad to find that you
consider my work satisfactory."

" I fear you are in some trouble," Vyner observed kindly, dropping
for the moment his tone of reserve, and regarding her critically, " or
else sadly out of health. Perhaps — pardon the question — a trouble
you before alluded to is before you again."

" I am not rich," said the girl with a bitter attempt at a laugh.
" There is plenty of poverty around, and I am certainly not exempt."

"You must take care of yourself," said Vyner, still with that novel
air of solicitude which sat so strangely upon him. " I fear your
friends at home do not properly consider you. You were evidently
not intended for one of the workers of this world."

" I have no friends," Alice Delorme cried passionately — " I have
no friend in all the world, Mr. Vyner, and I must work or starve.
An enviable fate," she added with weary bitterness.

Suddenly across Vyner's brain flashed the remembrance of his
brilliant successful manhood, with: its one aim and desire for gain,
and its present fulfilment. He looked at Alice Delorme, and for one
brief instant he allowed the latent goodness of his nature to overcome
the pride and reserve.

" It is hard for you ; terribly hard," he said, with rough kindness.
" I have heard many tales of destitution and woe that have only
provoked from me scorn and derision ; but your case differs from the
rest You are a lady, and friendless. Believe me, I am sorry for you."

" I have been unlucky all along," she replied sorrowfully. Her eyes,
with so much unconscious beauty and sadness in them, touched a tender
chord in her employer's heart. No man is all granite, although some
would fain believe themselves to be so. Vyner had had no time in his
eventful career for love affairs, and was ever too proud for flirtations ;
he had lived out his life apart from women and their refining influences,
and had known none intimately. With the swiftness of lightning, he
suddenly realised that Alice Delorme was both beautiful and fascin-
ating, and the know^ledge afforded him unqualified pleasure. But,
although he was ignorant of it, the fact that she was sorrowful and
desolate, even more than any attraction of person, had aroused his

82 A Hard Man's Charity,

compassion and kindly interest. Rising abruptly, he held out his hand
with a frank, winning smile.

" Miss Delorme, \vill you accept my sympathy ? And now I will
not detain you any longer, or neglect my correspondence. This is
Tuesday. You will oblige me very much by taking a complete rest
until next week, when I shall hope to see you return looking more fit
for work."

" Oh, thank you — thank you ! " cried the girl, with excessive
gratitude. Her dark eyes were swimming in tears as she spoke, her
hand trembled uncontrollably in Howard Vyner's friendly clasp. Then
she turned away, and Yyner resumed his writing.

******

Under a solitary street lamp one January night, Howard Vyner
stands waiting with exemplary patience. He has stood here fully
eleven minutes, yet betrays neither eagerness nor annoyance, being
perfectly assured of ultimate success. And success does reward him
at length, for down the gloomy little street comes a girl's form, clad in
a long, tight-fitting ulster.

" Miss Delorme," says Vyner courteously, as he advances to meet
her, " I am lucky to-night ; I was wishing particularly to see you."

Miss Delorme inclines her head and smiles rather nervously. She
does not ask him why he prefers loitering about the cold streets in
hopes of seeing her to requesting an interview in his comfortable office ;
possibly she does not require enlightening upon the subject. At any
rate she exhibits no symptom of surprise at sight of him, nor a particle
of embarrassment now that his greeting is over. Two months' sojourn
in Farringham has assured Miss Delorme that had she no friends
before her advent, she may count upon one now in the person of her
employer. And yet they seldom meet, only sometimes like this on
her way home from . business, when she answers his questions "v^'ith
perfect friendliness and composure, and grows to appreciate, as perhaps
none of his acquaintances have ever appreciated before, Howard
Vyner's innate goodness and chivalry of heart beneath his brusque and
cynical exterior. Other thoughts regarding this sudden whim of his
for her society have frequently troubled Alice Delorme, and rendered
her manner oftentimes cold and uncertain ; but, as she is wont to say
to herself in extenuation, wuth a kind of reckless philosophy, when
this vague dread presses heavily upon her, she must not quarrel with
her bread and butter, and at this present moment her bread and
butter is walking beside her on the pavement.

" Terribly cold to-night, isn't it ? " he says. " I hope you are well
wrapped up. Miss Delorme. How absurd it seems for a delicate girl
like you to be earning your bread and living all alone in this inde-
pendent fashion."

So saying, Vyner bends his head to look at her tired white face
with eyes that are neither calm nor expressionless. !Miss Delorme
laughs.

A Hard Man's Charity, 83

" I should hate to live alone," she says absently. " Neither Edwin
nor I are cut out for a solitary life."

" And who is Edwin ? " queries Vyner quickly ; and at his question
the girl grows swiftly confused, and a wave of colour sweeps over her
face. " I thought you did live alone," pursues her companion coldly.
" I understood you to be absolutely without friends or relatives, and
pitied you accordingly."

■■ "> " Pity me now," says Miss Delorme, with a dash of sadness in her
quiet tones, " and please do not withdraw the friendship which I value
so highly. Mr. Vyner, I have told you before, and I tell you again
to-night, that it is against my wish that you trouble to meet me and
escort me home, that I am quite content to remain your clerk, while
giving you my gratitude, respect and friendship for the consideration
you have always shown me. You say in return that you may please
yourself. Well, decidedly. And yet I would rather, far rather, that
for the future you ignored my obscure existence. Mr. Vyner, you must
pardon me if I have given you offence. I have not deceived you
voluntarily. I have more cares and worries than I could possibly
confess, and, as you ask me who Edwin is, I may tell you this much
— that he is one whom the world condemns and wastes no pity upon,
a man hiding from the law's punishment, and whose whole bitter life
is paying the penalty of a youthful sin."

Vyner stops abruptly in the dimly lighted street, and draws firmly
and tenderly into his one of Alice Delorme's gloved hands. He is, as
a rule, so cool, so self-contained, that emotion rarely troubles him or
carries him out of himself; but just in this moment a nameless some-
thing in the girl's face and thrilling tones plants a torturing dread in
Vyner's heart, and opens his eyes to one important self-consuming
conviction. He clasps her hand in his ; he gazes spell-bound into
the dark troubled eyes.

" Poor Edwin ! " continues Miss Delorme wistfully. " He is a sad,
almost hopeless invalid, and entirely dependent upon the money that I
earn. It is gall and wormwood to his proud spirit to accept the little
comforts I can offer him, and little indeed they are to one suffering from
the wearing disease which has made Edwin old before his time, and
robbed him of all hope — all youth — all happiness. And yet," her
face, suffused with tears and emotion, is upturned to the stern one
above her, " and yet, poor struggling outcasts as we were, you helped
us ; you gave me food and lodging and a restful heart that day when I
came in fear and trembling to your office. You were a hard man,
they said, but you were not hard to me, and I say ' God bless you,'
Mr. Vyner, for your kindness to me that day."^

They walk on in silence down gloomy Queen Street. A question
is trembling on Vyner's tongue ; his brain grows dizzy with the over-
whelming fears that possess him, but Alice walks on at his side, and
there are no outward signs of agitation visible on her sweet face to tell
of the' madly beating heart within.

84 A Hard Man's Chanty.

" Sometimes," she says abruptly, " sometimes I think that Edwin
will die. In spite of all my care — in spite of all the little comforts —
the fear haunts me every day and every night. He has grown so pain-
fully frail and weak, and lung disease nearly always kills in the end."

They have reached No. 2 1 before Vyner replies.

" Miss Delorme," he says earnestly, " you need have no fears that I
shall betray your trust. I want to be your friend still, and you must
let me take advantage of my friendship and try to brighten the
monotony of your life if it lies in my power to do so. Remember I
am rich — very rich — and I have earned the reputation of being hard
and grasping and uncharitable. I have scoffed at poverty, and
hugged my gold to my bosom. Will you let me give my poor soul a
chance. Miss Delorme ? "Will you forgive my trespassing on a delicate
subject like this, and if I take it into my head to send a little offering
occasionally to an invalid, will you pocket your pride and accept it —
only a few flowers, or a little fruit, or any small dainty ? Perhaps in
the next world it may be accounted to me for good. Will you ? "

He is unprepared for her rapid effusive expressions of gratitude, and
man-like, feels ashamed and vastly uncomfortable. Long years of
afiluence and ease have dulled Vyner's perceptions with regard to
poverty and privation ; but Alice Delorme, in these days of wearing
anxiety and terrible distress, forgets to summon pride to her aid, and
thinks only of the welcome relief of which she has stood in such sore
need. She has murmured her thanks, and Vyner has released her
hand. In another moment she will have vanished. Her hand is on
the door.

" Miss Delorme," says Vyner's rapid, almost imploring tones, as his
eyes search hers with a swift passionate fire in their depths, "you
forget — you have not yet given me permission to visit you and — your
brother."

Alice smiles, and his fears depart.

" Ah, no ! " she says sadly. " Edwin will see no one. I am sorry
I must deny you this. Good-night. I can never thank you enough."

Howard Vyner walks briskly homewards to the large tastefully-
furnished house, where he spends a few hours every day surrounded
with luxury and ease. And all the time he reflects, half gladly, half
regretfully, that although wealth has been his for nearly fifteen years,
he has failed to appreciate its value until to-night.

******

Her note is in his hand — the cold, business-like note, sent after
two days' absence.

" Dear Mr. Vyner,

" I cannot hope to express in words the gratitude which I feel
for your numerous kindnesses and presents to my poor invalid.
Indeed, we both thank you very heartily, and the pleasant knowledge
must be yours that you have cheered many a weary hour. It is with

A Hard Man's Chanty, 85

regret that I a^k you to release me from my duties, as I am unable
any longer to leave home, and trust that you will quickly fill my
vacant post, and pardon any inconvenience my absence may have
caused you. " Sincerely yours,

"Alice Delorme."

Randall had reason for wonderment that morning, when he entered
Mr. Vyner's private room for the third time, to find the occupant
sitting, pen in hand, at his desk, but with eyes vacantly fixed on some
imaginary object outside the window. But Randall would have
marvelled still more had he witnessed the ludicrous haste with which
his dignified master put on his hat and accomplished the distance
that intervened between the office and Queen Street.

Vyner rang the bell and asked imperiously for Miss Delorme ; but,
once ushered into the small, barely-furnished sitting-room, and Miss
Delorme's light step heard in the passage, Vyner's equanimity all
at once forsook him, and he looked helplessly around for means of
escape. What would she think of him, thus ignoring her express
wishes, and intruding on her sorrow and loneliness ?

But one glance at Miss Delorme's face reassured him ; her eyes
were bright with a feverish sadness that went to his heart, and her
cheeks pale from exhaustion and watching. She was wearing a
crimson blouse of some soft woollen material, and her luxuriant
masses of bright brown hair were loose, and carelessly arranged.

All this Vyner's critical eye mastered at a glance ; but he saw also
that the sad eyes flashed a grateful smile of welcome, and that the
red lips quivered unmistakably as she felt his hand close over hers.
In this moment Alice was beautiful, and Vyner, susceptible as any
love-sick youth to her charms of face and figure, drew nearer, allowing
his eyes to express the sympathy and tenderness which, as yet, he was
incapable of uttering.

Alice looked up, her eyes brimming over with tears. " He is
dying," she said, " dying — and I can do nothing." In a few moments
she became calmer. " Poor Edwin," she sighed, " Fate is so hard
upon us, and yet even now if she would relent he has still one little
chance. Dr. Perrins is not hopeless, by any means. He says that
it is England which is killing him — cold, foggy, dismal England, and
that I should have taken him away long before the winter months
came on. His orders are most peremptory, and they have broken
my heart. Edwin is to go to the South of France at once while the
weather is mild, and directly he rallies sufficiently to travel. If he
does not go — oh, it is cruel, cruel to tell me so — he will die ! "

" And if he goes ? " says Vyner eagerly.

" He will live for years."

" Then, Miss Delorme, you have no choice but to obey."

" I," she cries passionately, " I — who haven't a friend in the world,
or a sixpence to call my own beyond the salary you pay me ? I —

86 A Hard Man's Charity.

who prayed months ago for his death, that he might be spared a
Hngering illness embittered by slow starvation ? Oh, what a fate is
ours — what a fate ! I have no one to turn to, no one to help me."

" Nay," Vyner says with a wonderful tenderness, a wonderful
compassion. Love sweetens his tone, illumines his face, and lends to
his manner almost a woman's gentleness as he clasps the girl's hands
within his own and draws her nearer, nearer, until her lips are close
to his. " Dear, you have me always ; and I will do this and more,
because — I love you."

Alice's face flushed into new loveliness, and then smftly paled.
She tore away her hands in a tempest of excited grief and despair.
" You would do this — for Edwin ? " she breathed, looking up at him.

"No— for you."

" Because you love me ? "

" Because I am going to win you for my wife ! "

"Oh, go away," she wailed — "go away ! This is killing me. It
can never be — never ! "

" And why not?" questioned Vyner harshly.

Alice Delorme moved noiselessly across the room, and opened a
door which led into an adjoining apartment temporarily fitted up as a
bedroom. Turning, she motioned Vyner to her side, and he saw
with compassionate interest a figure lying on a bed in the centre of
the room — the figure of a young man of about seven-and-twenty,
painfully drawn and emaciated. He had just now fallen into a
peaceful slumber. Short golden curls lay upon the pillow — a blonde
moustache partially concealed the weak, boyish mouth ; but the
delicate features and hectic colouring touched Vyner's heart with an
indescribable pathos. This boy, this Edwin, was all that she had,
and she loved him !

Alice closed the door, and began to speak rapidly.

" He looks so young and boyish still," she said sorrowfully, " that
you would hardly believe that five years ago he was mixed up with a
London forgery case, and we were obliged to leave England secretly,
and take refuge for a long time in America. Our life has been one
long torture — one unceasing bitterness. Three years ago Edwin's
health failed, and since then I have been compelled to work for both,
nursing him in my spare hours, and enduring agonies of fear all the
time that he was left alone. And then, poor boy, he began to long
for England and home again, and we agreed to seek out some
secluded spot where I might obtain , daily employment, and where
we might be secure from all prying eyes. So we came here to
Farringham, and you know all the rest — how you helped me and
gave me work. And now it is all over ! "

She buried her face in her hands, and sobbed long and bitterly.
Vyner stood by in silence. Presently Alice raised her head and
looked up at him, her eyes drowned in tears.

" He is my husband," she said, with a kind of reckless despair.

A Hard Man's Chanty. 8/

" I deceived you a few weeks ago — that night when you volunteered
to help us, and allowed Edwin to pass, as you suggested, for my
brother. We had always done so abroad, and he had adopted my
name to avoid detection, and I thought it would be less difficult to
get employment if I were an unmarried woman. And then, Edwin
was fading before my eyes, and you were rich — oh, so rich ! — and
you offered to help me in the noble generosity of your heart. I was
wicked, and cruel, and heartless, and I think you will hate me
always ; but I knew "

" You knew that I loved you," broke in Vyner bitterly.

" Yes ; I knew that night. I could not help it. But I resolved
to leave you in ignorance. How could I have sent you away ? "

She hid her face again, and Vyner stood at the window, looking
out. It was raining outside, and a little child was sobbing loudly in
the street. Vyner wondered, in a dull, vague fashion, how long his
heart would ache as it ached just then ; how long, during the years
to come, he would see this woman's face, all pale and tear-stained,
and how long the bitter overwhelming knowledge would haunt him
day and night ; that success, and wealth, and precedence were as dross
compared with the love that dwelt in his heart for Alice Delorme.

Suddenly Alice raised her eyes, and they met his, and a dull,
red flush crept up to Vyner's brow. He thought once it would
be a just punishment for her deceit if he asked her with brutal
candour, " Alice, do you love me ? " He could read her like a book,
he said to himself, just as he had read her past sad history, her
mistaken marriage, her blighted hopes, and lasting regret. She had
wronged him — Vyner — who loved her truly. She had given him
something to remember and regret all the remainder of his life, and
now she had dried her eyes and was looking across at him.

" Why don't you go ? " she said.

" I am going," Vyner answered promptly ; " but, before I leave,
I want to tell you that you may make yourself perfectly happy
about — your husband. Didn't I tell you, that night, that my soul
was very black ? Perhaps one white spot upon it may turn out its
ultimate salvation. No — no thanks. Give me your hand once — ^just
once. I will make every necessary arrangement for you, and you
must start immediately that Dr. Perrins gives you permission ; but I
shall not see you again, as I am exceedingly busy just now. Child —
for you are a very child still — don't be downcast. Let me wish you
and yours renewed health and happiness. That's right. Smile ! I
like to see your eyes merry. And now — good-bye ! "

" Good-bye ! "

What do her eyes mean ? If he looked again he might read them ;
but he will not. As he reaches the door her last unsteady words fall
upon his ear —

" Some day Edwin and I will come home again — and bless you ! "

S8 A Hard Man's Charity,

Two years later, one afternoon in spring, Randall ushers a lady into
his master's private office. The lady is handsomely dressed in dark
furs, and presents a beautiful and charming appearance. Howard
Vyner rises at her entrance, and shakes hands with her coolly enough ;
but he listens with an air of attentive interest to the brief story she
tells him — the story of a lingering death in the sunny South, and a
small fortune which has fallen to the widow's share too late to brighten
the little home.

"You gave us six months' happiness," says Alice Delorme sweetly,
" six months of real happiness. Edwin said so, and he wanted you
to know. But his case was too hopeless a one for cure, and Dr.
Perrins was mistaken in his opinion. I came down to Farringham
to-day, Mr. Vyner, to thank you, and return to you as far as lies in my
power the kindly help you gave me in my trouble. You are very well,
I hope," she adds, smiling, standing up and preparing to take her
departure.

"Very well, and very busy," returns Vyner absently. And then,
abruptly, his manner changes ; the fire that died out of his eyes
long ago in the little sitting-room in Queen Street, springs into life
again beneath the radiance of Alice's smile. Her hand, given in fare-
well, lies clasped in his. " Alice," he says, with one steady look into
her face, " I have clerks enough and to spare, but I am sadly in want
of a wife. Farringham has given me up in righteous despair, and I
am reported to be fast going down hill. Do you think you will take
compassion on me?"

Poor Randall, knocking at the door five minutes later, and receiving
no answer, advances boldly into the room, and is alarmed into a pre-
cipitous and most undignified exit.

" Trust a woman for mischief," says the dried-up old misanthrope
sagely.

L. Jackson.

The bell was rung, and Esther herself answered it.

THE ARGOSY.

AUGUST, 1892.

A GUILTY SILENCE.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE STOLEN CASKET.

"NT EXT evening's post brought Margaret the following letter : —

" Honoured Miss Davenant, — This is to inform you that your
par has met with a accedent through treading on a peace of oringe
peel and has been lade up these two days rather worse this morning
but not dangerous still should feel more comfortable if you was here
to see him i write this unbeknown to the old gentleman trusting you
will excuse the liberty from yours trooly, "ME Rix "

The morning train for Wellingford was gone before Margaret
received the letter. The next train was not till afternoon, and by that
she went. Mrs. Rix's note would have reached her on the previous
morning, had not the slatternly young person to whom it was intrusted
by the writer kept it in her pocket for twenty-four hours before posting
it. But of this Margaret was unaware, the letter being without date
of any kind, otherwise she would probably have been even more
disquieted in mind than she was. The forty hours that had elapsed
since the writing of the note had been sufficient to cause a marked
improvement in the condition of Mr. Davenant. At first, he had
really been much shaken by his fall, and confinement to bed had
induced a low and melancholy frame of mind ; and when, one
morning he began to talk in a lugubrious voice about his "latter
end," Mrs. Rix at once took alarm, the result being the elegant piece
of composition given above.

For Ferdinand Davenant to be laid on a sick bed, even for one
day, was a novel but by no means a pleasant experience. It was
almost incomprehensible to the o\di flaneur to find himself thus cut off
at a moment's notice from that outer world, in whose daily sayings and
doings he took such intense delight. The old out-door, bustling,
meretricious life had slipped away from him like a cuticle for which

VOL. LIV. G

90 A Guilty Silence,

he had no longer any use ; and he shivered as he looked around,
everything felt so changed and cold. During the weary hours he lay
in bed, unable to move without pain, his thoughts would now and
then persist in coming home to roost, when he would fain have kept
them still on the wing. They would keep on whispering disagreeable
questions in his ear — questions which he found it impossible to
answer. Ever since he was first launched on the world, it had been
his endeavour to make his life as much like one long Jour de fete as
possible ; and now (these same tormenting thoughts kept on asking
him) out of all the years that he had thrown so recklessly into the
crucible of pleasure, what residuum of pure gold remained to him ?
Absolutely not a single grain ; and already he was an old man. Already !
why it seemed only yesterday since he touched his majority and twenty
thousand pounds with it ! No wonder- the old worldling grew melan-
choly, and began to quaver about his " latter end."

Happily, however he took a turn for the better a few hours after
the writing of Mrs. Rix's note, and from that time his improvement
was rapid, although his ankle still remained so swollen and painful
that he was unable to leave his bed. By the time Margaret reached
Wellingford he had almost recovered his usual spirits.

Margaret stooped over the bed and kissed her father ; then she put
her arms round his neck, and laid his head on her bosom, and kissed
him again.

" It makes me very, very happy, dear, to find that you are getting
better ! " she murmured.

" Madge ! Madge ! don't talk like that ! " he exclaimed. " Heaven
is kinder to me than my deserts, to have blessed me with such a
child ! "

Then he cried for a little while, quietly and without noise ; but
Margaret soon succeeded in comforting him, and at the end of half
an hour he was his old cheerful buoyant self again, without a care for
the future, or a thought that reached to the morrow.

Next day Mr. Davenant was still better, and was able to get up
and limp as far as the sofa in the next room. Margaret fetched out
his violin and asked him to play. After that, she sang to him, and
then read to him. Still later in the day, she got out the chessmen,
and after teasing Mr. Davenant for an hour and a half, she allowed
herself to be ignominiously beaten. Then, while Margaret was there,
there came a long letter from Trix, dated from some hotel on the
Rhine, which had to be read over aloud three times, and commented
on I know not how often, before Mr. Davenant would allow it to be
put away. But Margaret said no word to her father touching her
own engagement ; for which reticence we may credit her with certain
reasons of her own.

Her father improved so rapidly that Margaret decided to return
home by the early train on the second morning after her arrival at
Wellingford. This train reached Helsingham at eight o'clock, so that

A Guilty Silence. 91

she would just be in time to commence her morning duties in the
schooh Before leaving her father, she did not forget to nearly empty
her purse, and when she reached the station at Helsingham she
found that she had not sufficient money left to pay for a cab home.
She smiled to herself, and thought what a different fortune would be
hers a few weeks hence, when, as Mrs. Robert Bruhn, of Brook
Lodge, she should have a carriage and servants of her own to wait
upon her. Everything would be changed as by the touch of an
enchanter's wand. The fortunate prince had come at last, whose
kiss would change her from a shabby-genteel Cinderella into a
glittering princess, with whom Poverty would never more dare to
claim acquaintance.

These were pleasant thoughts to accompany her during her walk
home on that brisk, cheery, autumn morning. No sooner had she
reached Irongate House than she saw that something unusual had
happened. On her way to her own room she met Esther Sarel.

" What is the matter, Esther ? " she said.

" Last night, ma'am, the house was broken into by thieves, and
Miss Easterbrook is terribly put about."

A slight smile pursed up the corners of Margaret's mouth. " What
can there possibly be in Irongate House worth the carrying away ? "

" Miss Easterbrook has had a small bag of money taken out of her
desk. And the silver spoons are gone, and one or two of the young
ladies' best dresses, and a few other things. But, as far as I can
make out, there is only one thing gone belonging to you.''

" And that is— ? "

" The little ebony casket from off your dressing-table."

Margaret's very soul seemed to freeze with terror. She turned on
Esther with a face as white as that of a dead woman. " What did
you say ? " she whispered hoarsely.

" The casket, ma'am, from off your dressing-table, is one of the
things stolen."

" Great heavens ! what will become of me ? "

In the stolen casket was hidden away the stolen letter.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

MR. DAWKINS'S MORNING CALL.

Miss Davenant did not faint ; she did not even sink into a chair.
She seemed to turn rigid where she stood, as though she had been
touched by some magician's wand, and changed suddenly into stone,
leaving nothing of her alive save her wild, beautiful, terror-stricken eyes.
" Oh, miss, what has happened ? " cried Esther Sarel, whose face
had caught a reflection of the anguish and terror which contracted
that of Margaret.

G 2

92 A Gtnlty Silence.

Miss Davenant did not answer ; she did not even seem to be aware
of Esther's presence. Fixed and motionless as a marble statue, she
stood, like Belshazzar, appalled at the vision before her. But, in her
case, no Daniel was needed to interpret the letters of flame which
were burning themselves so deeply into her brain. Only four letters,
making up one little word, easy for any one to read. J^uin ! One
little word, written again and again, till all space seemed to burn with
it. One little word syllabled again and again till all space seemed to
echo it. Ruin — everywhere Ruin.

Esther began to weep. Going up to Margaret, and touching her
lightly on the arm, she said tearfully — " Oh, miss, do please tell me
what has happened."

The touch, light as it was, broke the spell that rested on Margaret.
The rigidity of her features seemed to melt away ; a consciousness of
time and place, and of the familiar things before her, began to dawn
in her eyes. With a faint sweet smile she turned on Esther, and
patting her softly on the cheek, said, " Simple child. Why do you
cry ? There is no need for tears."

Then, seating herself on the sofa, she drew Esther to her side, and
let her head rest on the girl's shoulder. In that first bitter hour of
her trouble, Margaret's pride was utterly vanquished. She let her
head rest thus for several minutes ; then, with a heart-weary sigh, she
took hold of Esther's hand, and said, "All this must seem very
strange to you, Esther. But I cannot explain it, so you must not
ask me to d,o so ; neither must you ever say a word about it to any
one. On that score I have implicit faith in you." Then, after
another space of silence, she added, " Now that I am better, you must
give me all the particulars of this strange affair. Have the — have any
of the thieves been captured ? "

"No, miss, not so far as I know," answered Esther. "They broke
in through the back laundry window, and nobody knew anything
about it till cook got up this morning, and found that the silver
spoons had been taken. Miss Easterbrook sent me down to the
police-station, and one constable has been here already; but Mr.
Dawkins, the superintendent, has promised to come up in a little
while. Miss Easterbrook had a fit of hysterics when the news was
told her, and she has been so ill ever since that she has been
obliged to go to bed ; and everything in the house seems to be going
wrong,"

" Then it is time for me to bestir myself," said Margaret. " Leave
me now, Esther. I will just change my dress, and then go and see
Miss Easterbrook. Be silent, and discreet."

As soon as Esther was gone, Margaret hastened to satisfy herself
with her own eyes that the casket was really stolen. Yes — it was no
longer there ; neither it nor a shawl-brooch, a silver arrow, which she
remembered to have laid on the top of the casket a few minutes
before setting out for the station on her way to Wellingford.

A Guilty Silence, 93

Whither, now, had vanished all those pleasant dreams with which
she had beguiled her way back from the station only one short half-
hour ago ? Air-drawn pictures, traced by the fingers of the Fiend, to
lure her with a beauty that made more bitter the bitterness of her
present cup : such to her they now seemed. Mrs. Robert Bruhn, of
Brook Lodge, indeed ! Say, rather, a convict with cropped hair,
picking oakum in a whitewashed cell. Such was certainly the fate in
store for her, should the stolen casket by any mischance fall into the
hands of the police. Instead of houses, and carriages, and servants, and
a husband's protecting love, — the police-van, the prison, and stern-faced
women with bunches of heavy keys. Then, more terrible than all,
there would be the trial in open court — a trial for felony, under the
scorching gaze of a thousand eager, inquisitive, pitying, scornful eyes.
Why, the very shame of such a thing would kill her father, would
taint the name of her sister, and would make her memory a curse to
the man who had asked her to become his wife ! On one point,
however, she could afford to felicitate herself: that her engagement
to Mr. Bruhn was a fact of which, as yet, the world was in entire
ignorance ; and in entire ignorance it must remain, at all events, for
the present.

With a preternatural calmness that seemed to have in it a touch of
something that was akin to the calmness of a sleep-walker, she made
her toilet, and then went in search of Miss Easterbrook. The clear
olive of her cheeks had paled to an almost marble whiteness. The
delicate aquiline features were set and passionless ; only the thin
mobile under-lip quivered now and again almost imperceptibly, and her
slender restless fingers were never still.

No sooner did poor Miss Easterbrook set eyes on Margaret than
she opened out with a voluble account of the preceding night's
robbery, interspersing the narrative with a statement of what her
feelings would have been had she known that thieves were in the
house, and what her feelings were when she heard that thieves had
been in the house, and ended the whole with an hysterical burst of
tears. Margaret soothed her in some measure, and promised to see
Mr. Dawkins when he should arrive, and agreed to take the reins of
power entirely into her own hands till such time as Miss Easterbrook
should be sufficiently recovered to resume her functions. Then, with
a kiss, she left her, and proceeded into the class-rooms, where a
quarter of an hour's quiet supervision succeeded in restoring the
fluttered dovecote to something like order. Scarcely was this accom-
plished, when Esther Sarel came in with Mr. Dawkins's card, and
informed Margaret that that gentleman and one of his men were
waiting to see her.

Three minutes later, Mr. Dawkins and his faithful satellite. Sergeant
Stuffer, were ushered into Miss Davenant's sitting-room. Margaret
was sitting in front of her easel, and with her back to the door, as the
two strangers came in, contemplating, with her head a little on one

94 ^ Guilty Silence.

side, and her brush poised in her hand, a certain cloud-effect which
she had just been working into her landscape. She let them stand for
a moment or two, after they had advanced into the room, before she
deliberately laid down her brush, and slowly wheeling her chair,
confronted them with her pale, haughty face.

" You have called about this little affair of the burglary, I suppose,
Mr. — a — a — Mr. Superintendent Dawkins ? " said Margaret in her
clear, icy tones, daintily lifting the cardboard for a moment between
her thumb and finger, and glancing carelessly at it, as though to
make sure of the name. " Pray be seated," — this in her grandest
manner.

Even the usually imperturbable Mr. Dawkins seemed slightly taken
aback by a reception so entirely different from what he had expected.
Could it be possible that this flashing, glorious creature — a little ^assee,
perhaps, but none the worse for that in the eyes of Mr. Dawkins, who
was himself a widower of some years' standing, — was nothing more
than a teacher at Irongate House ? " Yes, I have called about the
little affair of the burglary," said Mr. Dawkins quietly, as he took the
proffered seat.

" Miss Easterbrook herself* being too unwell to receive you, she has
requested me to act as her deputy in this matter," said Margaret. " I
presume that your first duty will be to make an examination of the
premises ; after which you will require to see such of the domestics
as may be able to throw any light on the matter. Am I correct in
my assumptions ? "

" No one could be more so — as far as you go, madam," said
Mr. Dawkins drily, who did not relish having his work laid out for
him, ready cut and dried, by another. " But, in addition to what
you have stated, I shall require a list of the missing property, together
with a full and accurate description of each article. I presume there
will be no difficulty about obtaining such a list ? "

" No difficulty whatever. Why should there be ? " said Margaret.
" As yet, I suppose, you have no — no, what shall I call it ? — clue to
the perpetrators of the offence ? "

" Well — hum — you see it might be rather premature to say either
that we have or that we have not," said Mr. Dawkins, putting on his
professional mask in a moment.

" Just so. You have a natural dislike to commit yourself one way
or the other," said Margaret coolly. " I have always understood,
though I know nothing personally of such matters, that the more
oracular and mysterious the gentlemen of your profession become, the
less they really know about the affair in hand. Let us hope that the
rule does not hold good in the present case."

Mr. Dawkins laughed a feeble laugh, and wiped his hot forehead
with his yellow bandana. " The coolness of that lady is something
tremendous," said the superintendent to himself.

" I must now delegate you into the hands of my maid," said Miss

A Guilty Silence. 95

Davenant, " who will conduct you over the premises, and supply you
with whatever information you may require." Then she rang the bell.

" Might be a private in the force by the way I'm ordered about,"
muttered Mr. Dawkins discontentedly to himself.

The bell was answered by Esther Sarel.

" These gentlemen," said Miss Davenant, " are here to gather in-
formation respecting the burglary of last night. You will accordingly
conduct them over the house, or such portions of it as they may be
desirous of seeing, and introduce to them such of the domestics as
they may think proper to interrogate." Then, turning to the superin-
tendent, " I shall be glad to see you here, sir, when you shall have
finished elsewhere ; " and with a stately inclination of her head she
dismissed them, and turned to resume her brush, as though there
were no such persons in existence.

So Miss Davenant was left alone while the three wandered " up-
stairs and downstairs, and through my lady's chamber," Esther leading
the way with such a pretty air of timidity that the gallant Stuffer could
not keep his eyes off her. Mr. Dawkins himself marched on in grim
silence, keeping his sharp eyes well about him. The laundry window,
through which the thief or thieves had effected an entrance, was
examined from every possible point of view, and the gravel outside
was carefully searched for the marks of strange footsteps. After this
there was some further examination indoors ; then the cook, who had
been the first to make the discovery, and one or two of the other
domestics had a few questions put to them ; then a detailed list of the
missing articles was drawn up ; and then Mr. Dawkins declared that
nothing more could be done for the present, and that he was ready
to see Miss Davenant again.

Margaret, on being left alone, let the brush drop from her fingers,
and sank back in the chair with closed eyes, and so sat, as moveless,
except for her breathing, as one dead, till the noise of returning foot-
steps woke her suddenly into vivid life.

" Well, what news ? " she said, turning on Mr. Dawkins with a
smile as that gentleman entered the room. " You have not found
the rascals anywhere in hiding, I suppose ? No, of course not.
No such good fortune. But have you found any direct clue, may
I ask — anything that will serve to point your suspicions towards
any person or persons in particular? Now, pray don't put on your
grave professional air, and say that, really, you are scarcely prepared
at present to offer an opinion either one way or the other. Now,
don't do that ! Either satisfy the natural inquisitiveness of my sex
by answering my questions frankly and fairly, or else tell me plainly
that you Won't." Miss Davenant's smile, as she said these words, was
enough to coax a secret out of a far sterner man than the susceptible
Mr. Dawkins.

" It would be impossible. Miss Davenant, to answer any questions
put by you except in the fairest and frankest manner," he said.

96 A Guilty Silence.

' As you say, we have not found the thieves in hiding ; we had
not the least expectation of doing so. Neither have we found what
may be called any direct clue as to who the rascals are, or where they
come from. Still, the information I have gathered this morning will,
I hope, put me on the right track, and once on it, it will be strange if
I lose it again till Justice shall have claimed her own."

Margaret smiled and smelled her salts, but said nothing.

" By-the-bye," resumed Mr. Dawkins, as he drew a long strip of
paper from his pocket-book, " I have here a list, drawn up by myself,
of the stolen property. One of the missing articles is an ebony casket
belonging to you, so your maid informs me. Now, what I want is a
more exact description of the casket than your maid was able to furnish
me with. I have it put down here as a small oval casket, made of
ebony, inlaid with ivory, and having a small silver plate let into the
lid, on which were engraved the initials M. D. Is my description
sufficiently accurate ? "

"A photograph could hardly be more so," answered Margaret.
" I can add nothing to it. But, my poor rubbishing old casket that
I have had this quarter of a century ! — not worth a groat to any one
save the owner, and very little to me. You may as well expunge it
from your list ; it is not worth reclaiming."

•" Pardon me," said Mr. Dawkins suavely, " but of all the articles
taken, this one seems to me the most likely to be of use in tracking
the thieves. You see, it is something out of the common way — an
article which any pawnbroker or curiosity dealer would recognise in a
moment from a printed description. No, no, I cannot afford to
expunge it from my list ; the ebony casket is my trump card."

" But cannot you understand, sir," said Margaret, a little im-
patiently, "that to have my name mixed up in any way with this
wretched affair would be a source of great annoyance to me ? Suppose
the casket were found, and the thieves caught, as far as I understand
such matters, it would then become necessary for me to appear in
court and identify my property. To me such an ordeal would be
most painful and repugnant."

" A mere trifle, my dear madam, and in no way trying to the
nerves. I would guarantee that you should not undergo the least
annoyance. Then, think of the pleasure of seeing the rascals, or
rascal, for I am doubtful whether more than one was concerned in it,
convicted ! " and Mr. Dawkins chuckled, and rubbed his hands in
gleeful anticipation.

" The pleasure in such a case, sir, would be entirely your own,"
said Margaret, with a flash of scorn. "Am I to understand," she
went on, " that you decline to expunge my casket from your list of
the stolen property ? "

" My trump card ! In any other respect. Miss Davenant, I am
yours to command ; but this is a matter affecting my professional
reputation, and it grieves me to be compelled to disoblige a lady.

A Guilty Silence. 9/

By-the-bye, I have not yet ascertained from you the contents of the
casket. They were "

" Trifles, too numerous to be specified in detail. Bits of ribbon,
two or three odd gloves, a few Roman coins, some needles, and
sewing-silks of different colours, a letter or two of no consequence
to any one but myself, together with a small heap of miscellaneous
rubbish." Margaret ran through the list with a sort of contemptuous
indifference. Then rising from her seat, as if to put an end to the
interview, she said, " So you decline to oblige me in this trifling
matter, Mr. Dawkins ? "

" You are really too hard upon me. Miss Davenant," said the
superintendent, rising also. " But are we not both tilting at shadows ?
The thieves are not yet caught, and it is quite possible that they never
will be. Even should we succeed in getting them safely under lock
and key, it is not unlikely that we shall find that your casket has
either been broken up and burnt, or made away with in some other
manner ; in fact, the probabilities are dead against its ever turning
up or being seen by you again. Good heavens, madam, are ^ou ill?"

Margaret's overstrung nerves had given way at last, and the super-
intendent was barely in time to catch her as she sank to the ground
in a dead faint. He rang for assistance, and delivered Miss Davenant
into the hands of Esther Sarel. Five minutes later he left Irongate
House in company with the faithful Stuffer, who had been regaling
himself to his heart's content in the kitchen.

Just outside the gates, Mr. Dawkins came to a dead stop. " What
is Miss D.'s little game, I wonder?" he murmured to himself.
" There's something more under the surface than can be seen at
present. I must get hold of that casket by hook or by crook. Yes,
my dark-eyed friend, you have just gone the right way to work to
excite the curiosity of J. D. ; so much the worse, perhaps, for you.
I've caught many a one tripping just as unlikely as Miss Margaret
Davenant. What a splendid creature she is, though ! Thoroughbred
every inch of her, and as full of fire as a racer. Come along, Stuffer.
We must strike while the iron's hot."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.

Two hours after the departure of Mr. Dawkins from Irongate House,
Margaret Davenant wrote and sent off the following note : —

" Dear Mr. Bruhn, — I want you to forget for the space of one
month all that passed between us a few evenings ago. Not that I
wish a single syllable of what was then said to be considered as
unsaid — quite the contrary ; but I am desirous that during the next
four weeks you should hold no communication with me, either directly

9^ A Guilty Silence.

or indirectly, that you should regard me for that time as a person who
has gone, say, on a voyage of discovery to the moon, and who is
utterly out of your reach for the time being. Further, I must
earnestly request that whatever y^^//j-/^ agreement you and I may have
come to on the occasion just named be kept an inviolate secret from
every one till you shall hear from me again. Can you grant me all
this without seeking to know my reason for asking it, because I can
never tell you my reason ? I think you can. At all events, I have
full faith in you. Four weeks to-day I will write to you again ; mean-
while, believe me to be,

" Faithfully and affectionately yours,

" Margaret Davenant.

" P.S. — Send me one line in reply to let me know that I have not
asked too much."

The line of reply sent by Mr. Bruhn ran as under : —

" Dear Margaret, — You have nof asked too much. Your wishes
shall be obeyed implicitly, and your reasons (I cannot doubt that they
are good ones) never be called into question. Four weeks seem a
long time, but at the end of them you will find me still, as ever,

" Your loving

" Robert Bruhn."

Margaret kissed the scrap of paper passionately, with many sighs
and tears ; and then, not daring to keep it about her, for she knew
not what a moment might bring forth, she burnt it.

She knew not what a moment might bring forth. Day and night
the sword of Damocles hung over her head, suspended by a single
hair. Every knock startled her, every strange footfall made her flesh
creep. Every morning on waking she said to herself, " Perhaps,
before the day is over I shall be in prison." And w^hen the day was
over and she laid her aching head on her pillow, she murmured, " It
is too late for them to fetch me to-night ; I am safe till to-morrow."

Never had she been more assiduous in her duties as governess than
she was during this time of soul-wearying suspense ; never more
painstaking, or patient, or gentle, than she was now. But the
moment her classes were over she got away to her own room, where
she would sit in the dark, silently brooding for hours ; or else, when
the mood was on her, she would seat herself at the piano and go on
playing far into the night, long after the rest of the house were in bed.
She could not bear to read, she could not bear to draw ; all the
ordinary occupations of her leisure hours, except milsic, were utterly
distasteful to . her. She was waited on with quiet devotion by
Esther Sarel, who was the only person Margaret cared to see inside
her room. " She's fretting after her sister, poor thing ! " said Miss
Easterbrook to herself. " Misses her, of course. But she will soon

A Guilty Silence. 99

get reconciled to the loss ; and when Mrs. Randolph gets back from
her wedding tour, Miss Davenant will recover her cheerfulness."

" She hardly eats enough to keep body and soul together," said
Esther despairingly, one day, when Margaret found it impossible to
touch some little dainty which she had concocted expressly for her.
" The dark circles under her eyes seem to get bigger every day. At
this rate she'll soon be in her grave. Ah ! there's something on her
mind ; I'm sure there is. She's heartsick with some great trouble."

Margaret still kept up her custom of taking a solitary walk every
morning before commencing the duties of the day; but now her- feet
invariably led her along certain high-lying fields, rarely frequented by
her before, which overlooked the approaches to Irongate House, so
that any person coming in that direction from the town could be
plainly discerned while still some distance away. Like Sister Ann
looking out from the battlements of Bluebeard's castle for the coming
horsemen, Margaret, from the vantage ground of these fields, gazed
along the high-road leading from the town, and waited for the coming
of the herald of her doom.

But still the herald of her doom delayed his coming. Day lagged
wearily after day, night stole stealthily after night, like one assassin in
the wake of another ; yet still the unnatural calm remained unbroken,
still the thunderbolt delayed to strike. Margaret began to breathe
again.

When the second Saturday after the burglary came round, she took
some comfort to herself from a paragraph in that day's issue of the
Helsingham Gazette^ which stated, with reference to the late affair
at Irongate House, that, " up to the present time, the police have not
succeeded in tracing any of the stolen property, neither have they
obtained any clue to the thieves." This was the first gleam of hope
that had visited her since the day of the robbery, and instead of dying
out, as she at first feared it would do, it broadened slowly but surely ;
the dark clouds of despair that had shut her in so firmly, as it seemed,
began to roll back on their gloomy hinges, and, like timid buds, all
the sweet hopes of her life began to blossom forth anew.

Yes, Margaret began to breathe again. The four weeks fixed upon
by her as her time of probation narrowed themselves to three ; the
three dwindled down to two ; the two faded into one ; the last of the
four was here, and still no word, good, bad, or indifferent, had been
spoken by Mr. Dawkins. But the suspense was killing. This silence
might bode her no good ; it might be merely the hush that precedes
the storm ; and since the oracle would not come to her, she decided
that she must go to the oracle. She went. Mr. Dawkins, busily at
work in his private ofiice, received her with affable politeness.

" Both Miss Easterbrook and myself," said Margaret, when the first
greetings were over, " are anxious to know whether you have obtained
any clue to the thieves who broke into Irongate House."

" I am sorry, Miss Davenant, to have to inform you that, so far,

100 A Guilty Silence.

all my efforts in that direction have proved of no avail," answered the
little superintendent. " I have had two or three men up on suspicion
of being implicated in the affair, but have been obliged to let them go
again for want of any direct criminatory evidence."

" Do you know, Mr. Dawkins," said Margaret with a smile, " that
I am rather pleased than otherwise at your want of success ? Of
course such a confession is shocking to your professional ideas, but I
believe Miss Easterbrook is of the same way of thinking as I am.
The stolen property was of no great value, and we would, both of us,
rather that the thieves should get clear away with it, than that we
should have to undergo the annoyance of being obliged to appear as
prosecutors in a court of justice."

" Happily, Miss Davenant, we men are not of the same way of
thinking in such matters ; and you may depend upon one thing, that
I shall continue to use my utmost endeavours to capture the rascals
who stole your ebony casket."

Despite the superintendent's ominous last words, Margaret walked
back to Irongate House with a wonderfully lightened heart. That in-
tolerable feeling of suspense was gone, or all but gone. She deter-
mined to scatter her w^eight of dark care to the winds ; to rise up from
her sackcloth and ashes ; to fling wide the gates of her life, that love
and all things bright and gracious might enter therein ; and should
there perchance be one or two dim ghosts still wandering forlorn in
the darkest corners of her heart, she would chain them up, and keep
them out of sight, so that no one should suspect their presence but
herself

One by one the last few days of Margaret's month faded into the
portion of time gone by till the morning of the last day dawned upon
her, bright and full of promise. Its evening was to bring back to her
side the man she had learned to love during her month of trouble far
more deeply than she thought she could ever have loved again. She
was very happy this morning, with a happiness that made her tremble.
She was like one who had come out of a cave of horrors into the
broad light of day. She was dazzled with the unaccustomed sun-
shine, and felt as though she were a stranger to herself. She knew
that the precipice she had so narrowly escaped was still there — that
the ground still trembled under her feet ; but she felt comparatively
safe now, and she would suffer no further prevision of ill to cloud her
mind. She would gather the rosebuds while it was in her power to
do so, and bask in the sunshine without a thought of the morrow.

In the afternoon she sent a message to Brook Lodge. For the
second time she wTote —

" Come to me.

" Margaret."

An hour later Mr. Bruhn was at Irongate House. Tears of love
and joy and gratitude shone in Margaret's eyes, as she held out both

A Guilty Silence. lOl

her hands to greet him. But Esther Sarel, who was standing with
the open door in her hand, could scarcely believe her eyes when she
saw Mr. Bruhn stoop forward and press, unchidden. Miss Davenant's
lips with his own.

They sat down side by side on the sofa in Margaret's room. Mr.
Bruhn took possession of her hand. " Now that you have come back
from your voyage of discovery to the moon," he said, " I hope you
will take the veto off my lips, and allow me to inform all and sundry
whom it may or may not concern that you are shortly to become my
wife."

" Then the four weeks that have passed since I saw you last," said
Margaret, " have not sufficed to show you the error of your ways ?
Are you still as obstinately bent as you were before on having your
own way in the matter, and scorning the opinion of the world ? "

" My will in this matter is as the laws of the Medes and Persians,
and can know no change. Further — I shall not leave this room till
the day is fixed upon that will change you from Miss Margaret
Davenant into Mrs. Robert Bruhn."

" Tyrant ! " sighed Margaret. " You think you can dictate to me
now ; but wait awhile, sir, and see whether I do not turn the tables
on you completely."

'' All the more reason why I should be a despot while it is in my
power. You will, consequently, bear in mind that the fifteenth of
next month will be your wedding day, and will make your preparations
accordingly."

" I never had a memory for dates," said smiling Margaret. " My
best plan will be to send Miss Easterbrook to you."

So she got up from her seat, and rang the bell ; and then coming
stealthily behind Mr. Bruhn, she touched him on the forehead with a
swift little kiss, and fled through the French windows into the garden.

The astonishment of Miss Easterbrook, when informed that Trix
was engaged to Hugh Randolph, was as nothing in comparison with
her astonishment at hearing the news Mr. Bruhn had to tell her.
Her first act on being told was to have a good cry ; but after she
had in some measure recovered, Mr. Bruhn and she had a long cosy
chat together, and settled everything between them to their mutual
satisfaction. Then Mr. Bruhn went in search of Margaret, and cap-
tured her in the little summer-house, where she was trying to read
' Hyperion ' with but indifferent success.

Margaret wrote to her father by that night's post, informing him
of Mr. Bruhn's offer, and her acceptance of it ; and not many days
were allowed to elapse before Mr. Davenant went in person to con-
gratulate his daughter. Margaret had half an hour's quiet conversa-
tion with the old gentleman before she introduced him to Mr. Bruhn.
The latter at once contracted a strong liking for Mr. Davenant —
despite his follies and failings, nearly everybody liked the old
Bohemian, — and he whispered to Margaret that as soon as they

102 A Guilty Silence.

should have returned from their wedding tour, he would find some
more lucrative and creditable post for her father than that of second
fiddle in the orchestra of the Wellingford theatre ; while Margaret,
on her side, gave Mr. Bruhn to understand, without telling him so in
words, that the more kindly he took to her father, the better he would
please her.

A shudder of horror and astonishment ran through the coteries of
town and county when the news of Mr. Bruhn's approaching marriage
was promulgated abroad. Marry a governess, indeed ! A woman no
longer young, who came from nobody knew where, and had not a
penny to call her own ! It was well-nigh incredible. Mr. Bruhn, in
years gone by, when he was a widower young and promising, had been
shot at by many fair archers ; but he had gone on his way with barred
visor, unheeding the tiny shafts of his assailants, until at length he had
come by common consent to be put in the matrimonial ' Index Ex-
purgatorius,' as a man who would never wed again. But now, after
all these years, the weak place in his armour had been discovered ; his
heel had been touched by the fatal barb ; and Achilles lay prone in
the dust.

But there was another tremendous question involved in this back-
sliding of Mr. Bruhn.

Would it be the duty of Society to acknowledge, or to ignore, the
new mistress of Brook Lodge ? A problem not lightly to be solved ;
a question not hurriedly to be answered. On the one hand, Mr.
Bruhn was too important a personage to be coughed down, or
shouldered out of court, as a person of inferior pretensions might
have been. He was a man of good family — although a manufac-
turer— of great wealth, and of unblemished reputation ; a man who
made his weight felt in twenty different ways, and who was not un-
likely, at no distant date, to represent the borough of Helsingham in
Parliament. Every way the question was beset with difficulties.
" Let us wait," said first one and then another, until in the end a
waiting policy was unanimously agreed upon. So Society sat, with
coldly-critical eyes, and its primmest pucker on its lips, waiting for the
first glimpse of the new mistress of Brook Lodge.

Meantime the preparations for the wedding went merrily forward ;
and the two people chiefly concerned never troubled themselves in the
slightest degree as to what the opinion of Society might be with regard
to their vile proceedings. During those few brief sunny weeks of
courtship they seemed, both of them, to have thrown off twenty years
from their lives, and were like two children playing at making love.
Our darling Trix, who had got back from her wedding tour by this
time, vowed that she had quite a maternal feeling for that giddy moth
of a Margaret ; and she told the gay young spark who came courting
to Irongate House that it would look much better of him to wear his
hair a?^ nafurel, instead of trying to revive the exploded practice of
dredging it with powder. This was a hit at Mr. Bruhn's grizzled

A Guilty Silence. 103

locks as offering such a marked conti'ast to the glad boyishness of his
disposition just then.

The wedding-day came at last, as all days, whether fair or foul,
will come in their turn. Never before, in the memory of any one
there, had the old parish church held such a crush of fair and
fashionably-dressed ladies. Mr. Davenant, in a new and lustrous
suit of clothes obtained specially for the occasion, was affected to
tears when he looked round and thought that it was his daughter
whom all this fair bevy had come to criticise and peck at. Miss
Easterbrook, whose water-works were always ready on the slightest
provocation, was tearful from different causes. Trix was lovely, and
commanded much attention. The bride herself looked very pale
and very haughty, but magnificently beautiful in her dress of white
moir^ antique. She knew that five hundred not very friendly eyes
were coldly dissecting her very look and movement, and she bore
herself accordingly ; but there was a veiled tenderness in her eyes,
and a trembling ring in her voice, which showed those who stood
around her how deeply she was affected. As for the bridegroom, we
all know that on such occasions he is regarded with a sort of
contemptuous indifference, as though he were merely a banner-carrier
in the procession — a supernumerary, indispensable, indeed, to the
due carrying out of the programme, but rather a nuisance than other-
wise from every other point of view ; and, in the present case, there
is no need to run counter to the popular opinion.

Fancy the wedding-breakfast happily over; fancy the parting
speeches all spoken ; fancy bride and bridegroom fairly on their way
to the continent ; and then let us bid them farewell for a little time,
and come back to the consideration of some other points connected
with this history.

CHAPTER XXXV.

Esther's confession.

The burglary at Irongate House was coming to be looked upon by
Mr. Dawkins and his merry men in blue as one of the unravelled
mysteries of their profession. All their efforts to discover the thieves
had proved of no avail ; and as time went on, bringing with it fresh
interests of various kinds, each demanding immediate attention, the
Irongate House affair was gradually elbowed on one side, and seemed
in danger of falling utterly into the background. It was, however,
suddenly dragged into prominence again by the unexpected finding of
Miss Davenant's ebony casket, which was brought to the police-
station on the very morning of Margaret's marriage by a labouring
man, who had found it hidden away under a quantity of cattle-fodder
in his master's stackyard, where it had doubtless been put by the
thieves, as an object of small value, the retention of which was more
likely to lead to their detection than any other article which they had

104 ^ Guilty Silence,

stolen. The man who found the casket, having read one of the
handbills put out by the police at the time of the robbery, at once
recognised his treasure-trove for what it really was, and became
desirous of ridding himself of it as quickly as possible.

As it happened, Mr. Dawkins had been called from home that
morning, and it was after mid-day when he took his seat in his
private office, and had the ebony casket placed in his hands by
Sergeant Stuffer.

Mr. Dawkins listened attentively to the recital of his faithful sub-
ordinate, respecting the finding of the casket, and then sat for some
minutes in silence. Not the least among the many surprises con-
nected with his career as police superintendent, was that of finding
the magnificent Miss Davenant, of Irongate House, transformed
into Mrs. Bruhn, of Brook Lodge. As he sat there with the casket
before him, every minute incident of their first interview rose vividly
in his memory. Her off-hand, imperious manner when he first
introduced himself; her coaxing, siren-like style later on, when she
begged of him to expunge that very casket from his list of the stolen
property ; those wonderful black orbs that thrilled him so strangely
when they fixed themselves full upon him ; the strange swoon into
which she fell, and the half impression upon his own mind as he left
the house, that there was something more under the surface of the
affair than was just then visible. Nothing was forgotten.

Presently Mr. Dawkins began to turn over and examine the casket
more closely than he had hitherto done. It accorded exactly with
the description of it given him at Irongate House. It was very old-
fashioned, and had a silver plate let into the lid, on which were
engraved Miss Davenant's initials. The lock had been wrenched
open, and the contents abstracted, and the whole concern was in a
very rickety condition.

Inquisitive Mr. Dawkins, turning it over and over in those itching
fingers of his, and examining into its construction, did not fail, after a
little while, to discover the secret of the false bottom. A touch of the
spring, and it flew open. There was nothing inside but a soiled and
torn letter. Stuffer had left the room ; Mr. Dawkins was alone, and
he pounced on the letter with avidity. Wonder of wonders ! It was
written on thin, foreign paper ; it bore the postmark of Melbourne,
Australia ; and it was addressed to Hugh Randolph^ Esq., Surgeon,
Helsingham, England. What could a letter so addressed be doing in
Miss Davenant's casket?

Mr. Dawkins rose softly, and shot the bolt of his office-door : and
then, with dextrous fingers, he proceeded to open the torn letter, and
to spread it out carefully on his desk. Then he read it.

There was a very curious expression on the face of Mr. Dawkins as
he refolded the letter, and put it back in its hiding-place. He had
not forgotten his interview with Mr. Peterson, the Australian lawyer, in
the smoking-room of the " Royal " ; and he had a perfect recollection

A Guilty Silence. 105

of the story of the lost letter as told him by that gentleman, and of the
slovenly way in which the affair had been hushed up. Long practice
had made Mr. Dawkins expert at putting together a chain of evidence
link by link ; and in the present case, he reached, without difficulty,
what seemed to him the only logical conclusion which the facts, as he
knew them, would admit of.

" The whole thing is as clear as mud," he said to himself. " Miss
D. was at the post-office the very evening the letter was missing.
Miss D. has a certain ebony casket stolen from her, and is so little
put about by the loss of it that she wants me to erase it from my list
of the stolen articles : on my refusing to do so she goes off in a dead
faint. The casket is afterwards recovered, and in a hidden cavity of
it is found the missing letter : ergo, Miss D. was the person who stole
the letter. Ton my word, it's as nice a little case as I've had the
handHng of for some time ! "

He rubbed his hands gleefully, and then began to turn over the
leaves of one of his memorandum books. " I promised to write tO'
that Australian lawyer in case of anything turning up," he said. " I
have his address somewhere. Ah, here it is, ' Mr, Peterson, Exeter Hall
Hotel, Strand.' " He began to walk about the room with his hands
in his pockets, whistling to himself in a minor key. " I wonder what
was Miss D.'s motive for taking that letter," he thought. " But
women's motives are about the most difficult things in the world to
get at ; and I dare say we shall find out what her little game was
before we have quite done with the affair. And this is her wedding-
day 1 If I had only known of this thing three hours ago, what a
pretty little bomb I might have thrown among the wedding guests
while they were enjoying their breakfast ! But now it's too late ; and
Monsieur and Madame are miles away by this time, on the road to
Paris. Well, well, we will keep it carefully till they come back.
What will Mr. Bruhn think of his grand, black-eyed wife when this
pretty story leaks out ? By Jove ! I shouldn't be surprised if there's
six months' House of Correction at the end of it ! " He got a sheet
of brown paper and some string, and proceeded to tie up the casket.
" I'll go and see Miss Fatty about it," he said. " Perhaps I may be
able to pick up two or three useful bits of evidence."

So Mr. Dawkins ordered a cab, and was driven up to Irongate
House, and ushered into the presence of Miss Easterbrook, who
had scarcely had time to recover from the excitement of the
morning.

" Will you be good enough to tell me. Miss Easterbrook, whether
you have ever seen this article before ? " said Mr. Dawkins, as he
unwrapped the brown paper.

" To be sure I have ! " answered the schoolmistress. - " It belongs
to Miss Davenant, and is one of the articles stolen from this house a
few weeks ago."

" W^here was it generally kept ? "

VOL. LIV. H

io6 A Guilty Silence.

" On the dressing-table in Miss Davenant's bedroom."

" Was it usually kept locked ? "

" That is a question which I am unable to answer. In the absence
of Miss Davenant — or of Mrs. Bruhn, as I ought now to call her, —
her maid, Esther Sarel, is the only person who can answer your
question."

" Had any one access to the casket other than Mrs. Bruhn
herself?"

" What a strange question ! But I must again refer you to Esther
Sarel. Mrs. Bruhn's bedroom was an apartment rarely entered by me."

So the bell was rung, and Esther herself answered it, — a fresh,
modest, comely-faced girl, looking even prettier than usual to-day, in
the pretty new dress which Mrs. Bruhn had given her in honour of
the wedding, and with the heavy coils of her red-brown hair arranged
after a more fashionable style than she generally wore them.

Esther, on being questioned, at once acknowledged the casket as the
property of Mrs. Bruhn, and confirmed Miss Easterbrook's statement
that it stood on the bedroom dressing-table.

" Was it usually kept locked, or unlocked ? " asked the super-
intendent.

" Formerly it used to be unlocked ; latterly it was kept locked."

" For how long a time before the casket was stolen was Mrs. Bruhn
in the habit of keeping it locked ? "

" For three or four months, perhaps. I cannot tell exactly."

" How did you know when it was unlocked, and when it was
locked?"

" Because it was part of my duty to dust it once or twice a week.
When it was unlocked, the lid rattled a little, the hinges being rather
loose. When it was locked, the lid was firm."

" Are you aware whether the casket has a false bottom, or a secret
opening of any kind ? "

" I am not aware of anything of the kind."

" Do you know what were the usual contents of the casket ? "

"Yes, sir. Odds and ends of various kinds belonging to Mrs.
Bruhn : bits of ribbon, and different coloured silks, a few old coins,
some sticks of lavender, a pair or two of gloves, together with a few
other trifles of no great value."

" Are you aware whether Mrs. Bruhn was in the habit of using the
casket as a receptacle for letters ? "

" I am not aware that it was so used. I never saw Mrs. Bruhn
either put letters into, or take letters out of it."

" That will do. You may go."

Very thankfully Esther left the room. She shut the door behind
her, and took a few steps along the corridor. Then she stopped to
think. What was the object of Mr. Dawkins in putting all those
questions to her? she asked herself. Was there not some hidden
motive at work ? and if so, did it portend any mischief to her dear

A Guilty Silence. 107

mistress ? She had not forgotten the scene at the post-office ; she
had not forgotten Mrs. Bruhn's evident perturbation of mind when
informed of the loss of the casket ; she had many times been troubled
with a dim sense of some mystery, of some dark secret which haunted
the life of her mistress ; and it seemed to her by no means impossible
that this inopportune visit of the police superintendent might be con-
nected in some way with that secret. Some fine instinct seemed to
whisper to her that her mistress was threatened by a hidden danger,
and that Mr. Dawkins was the man that would strike the blow. But
how to ascertain whether such was really the case ? She had scarcely
put this question to herself when she saw her way to answer it. She
slipped off her shoes, and walked back along the corridor past the
door of the room in which Miss Easterbrook and Mr. Dawkins were
holding confidential converse, till she reached the door of the room
next to it. This door was open sufficiently to allow of Esther slipping
into the room. Between her and the speakers there was nothing now
but a pair of folding doors imperfectly closed. She advanced on tip-
toe, and laid her ear close to the opening. Under ordinary circum-
stances, Esther Sarel would have scorned the act of listening to a con-
versation which it was not intended that she should hear ; but for the
sake of her to whom she owed so large a debt of gratitude, she was
prepared to do much more than that.

When Esther put her ear to the door. Miss Easterbrook was
speaking as if in answer to some previous remark of Mr. Dawkins.
"But you must [bear in mind," she said, "that I know absolutely
nothing about what you term 'that business of the missing letter.'
Before going any further, would it not be as well for you to enlighten
me in some measure ? "

" I beg your pardon. I was under the impression that Mrs. Bruhn
must have told you all about it at the time of its occurrence."

" Not a word."

" Well, the case is simply this ; " and then Mr. Dawkins went on to
detail to his two wondering listeners those facts connected with the
letter from Australia with which the reader is already acquainted.
" Now this very letter," he finished by saying, " which was missed from
the post-office at the exact time that Mrs. Bruhn was there on a visit
to Miss Ivimpey, and which was never seen after that time, has this
morning been found by me in a secret recess of Mrs. Bruhn's casket,
in which place it had been left undiscovered by the thieves who took
the casket from Irongate House."

" But you do not mean to assert that the letter in question was
stolen by Mrs. Bruhn ? " said Miss Easterbrook in strange husky tones.

" I assert nothing. All I say is this : that Mrs. Bruhn will have
to prove to the satisfaction of those in a higher position than I am,
how it happens that this letter is found hidden away in her casket, in
a secret cavity, with which, so far as we know at present, no one but
herself was acquainted."

H 2

io8 A Guilty Silence.

" I cannot, I will not believe Margaret Davenant guilty of taking
this letter ! Besides, what possible motive could she have for so
doing ? In what way would such an act benefit her ? "

" It does not come within my province to deal with motives,^'
answered Mr. Dawkins. " All I can do is to look at facts as they
are, and act accordingly."

" What steps, may I ask, do you purpose taking ? Mr. and Mrs.
Bruhn, as you are already aware, started three hours ago on their
wedding tour."

" I think you also told me that Paris is the first place they will
make any stay at. At present, I shall not say a word of this business
to a soul, and I need hardly caution you to exercise the same re-
ticence. To-morrow I shall start for Paris. Mr. Bruhn being him-
self a magistrate, I can lay the whole affair before him without any
breach of duty on my part. What my proceedings will afterwards be,
will depend entirely on the view which Mr. Bruhn may take of the
case."

Esther waited to hear no more, but slipping noiselessly out of the
room, she hurried along the corridor and opened a side door which
led into the shrubbery. She could not go into the kitchen just yet.
She wanted a few minutes to herself in order to collect her thoughts,
fluttering here and there like frightened birds, utterly scared by the
astounding revelation to which she had just listened. With the
recollection still so sharply cut into her memory of what, herself un-
seen, she had been a witness of through the glass-door of the post-
office, supplemented by the statement of Dawkins, she could not, in
her heart of hearts, doubt that it was Margaret Davenant who took
the letter. What her motive could have been for so doing, Esther
did not pause to consider ; the only question she asked herself was,
" Is it possible for me to save her?"

A question, like many others, very easy to ask, but very difficult to
answer. What power had she, poor simple Esther Sarel, to keep
back for one single moment the advancing tide that threatened to
overwhelm her mistress in its dark waters ? All that it lay in her
power to do was to warn her. She knew her address in Paris, and
might telegraph to her. But in what terms could she word a message
that to strange eyes should read like an enigma, but yet one which
Mrs. Bruhn herself should clearly understand ? Would it not be
better to go to Paris in person, to start that very night, a few hours in
advance of Mr. Dawkins, and so tell her everything, word for word
that she had overheard ? Evidently that was the best, the only thing
she could do.

She would go down to the station, and inquire at what hour the
next train started for London ; then she would come back and beg a
holiday of Miss Easterbrook, and start at once.

With this idea firmly fixed in her mind, Esther turned towards the
house in order to get her bonnet and shawl. As she skirted a large

A Guilty Silence. 109

clump of evergreens, she came suddenly on Mr. Dawkins, who had
just said good-bye to Miss Easterbrook, and was on his way back to
the town. Esther started, and a tell-tale flush mounted to her face.
The Superintendent's sharp eyes were fixed full upon her, and it
seemed to her, in the confusion of the moment, as if he could read
her thoughts and knew of her intention, and would necessarily try to
frustrate it.

Mr. Dawkins had evidently intended at first to pass her without
notice, but a second thought seemed to strike him. " Stop a moment,
my girl ; I want a word or two with you," he said, as Esther was
hurrying past.

Esther's eyes dropped, and all the colour faded out of her face as
she came to a sudden halt.

" Do you remember calling at the post-ofiice on a certain evening
in last June — calling there by Mrs. Bruhn's instructions ? "

" I have been at the post-ofiice many times by Mrs. Bruhn's in-
structions."

" No doubt you have. But on the particular occasion to which I
now refer you waited in the inner ofiice for several minutes while
your mistress and Miss Ivimpey were talking together. Can you now
bring the occasion to mind ? "

"Yes, sir, I can."

" Ve — ry good. Now tell me — did you ever hear afterwards, or
did it in any way ever become known to you, that on that particular
evening a certain letter was missed from the post-office which was
known to be there at the time of your visit, and which ought to have
been delivered in Helsingham next morning ? Is such a circumstance
known to you at all ? "

" No, sir, I never heard of such a thing before to-day."

" You are positive on that score ? You would take your oath to
that effect if called upon to do so ? "

Esther's lips parted as if she were about to reiterate her previous
statement still more positively. Then she hesitated, and was silent.

The superintendent's brow contracted, and his voice took an added
tone of sternness when he next spoke. " Now, be careful what you
say. Do you mean deliberately to assert that you know nothing of a
letter having been missed from the post-ofiice on the evening in
question ? "

" I have heard something about a missing letter," answered Esther
almost in a whisper.

" Do you know who took the letter ? "

Esther did not speak.

" Now, do not prevaricate, but tell me the truth as far as it is
known to you. I ask you again. Do you know who took the
letter ? "

Even as the words passed her lips she felt with a wild throb of joy

no A Guilty Silence.

that her mistress — her darling mistress — was saved ; but she was only
dimly conscious of the magnitude of her own sacrifice.

It was not an easy thing to surprise Mr. Dawkins, but for this once
he was genuinely dumbfounded. He was more than that — he was
intensely disgusted. He had upon him something of the feeling of a
hunter who believes that he has a lord or lady of the forest in his
toils, but on opening his trap finds there nothing but his ordinary
game. There had been a sort of cmise celebre flavour about this affair
of the missing letter so long as he believed a great lady like Mrs.
Bruhn to be at the bottom of the mischief ; but now that by her own
confession the criminal proved to be merely Mrs. Bruhn's maid, it
sank at once into the category of commonplace crimes. The romance
of the thing was gone as far as he was concerned, and he would at
once put it into Stuffer's hands, to work up into proper shape.

" Now, I am going to put one or two more questions to you," said
Mr. Dawkins when he had recovered from the astonishment caused by
Esther's last words ; " but I warn you that you need not answer them
unless you like to do so, as whatever you say will probably be used in
evidence against you on some future occasion."

" I have nothing to conceal, sir," said Esther sadly. " Ask me
what questions you like."

" Still, I would have you remember that you are not bound to
criminate yourself by answering. In the first place, I should like to
know why you took the letter — what your object was in bringing it
away from the post-office ? "

" I can't tell why I took it. I had no object in doing so."

" You probably thought that it contained money ? "

" No, sir, no such thought ever entered my head. I saw the letter
lying on the floor ; it had been torn and trampled on. Something
seemed to whisper to me to take it, and I took it. Then Miss Ivimpey
came into the room, and I was frightened, and got away as soon as
I could, taking the letter with me."

" A decided case of kleptomania," said Mr. Dawkins to himself.
" But what induced you to select Mrs. Bruhn's casket as a hiding-place
for the letter ? " he asked.

" I don't know. I did it, but why I did it, I can't tell. I knew
of the secret hiding-place. I knew, too, that the casket was kept un-
locked, and that Mrs. Bruhn did not look into it once in three months.
I put the letter there, intending afterwards either to destroy it or else
to hide it somewhere else. A little time after that, Mrs. Bruhn locked
the casket, and my chance of removing the letter was gone."

"A queer story altogether," said Mr. Dawkins under his breath.
" Hang me ! if I know whether to believe her."

Esther was saying to herself, " What a heap of lies I am telling, and
how pat they all come into my mouth ! My mother used to say that
whenever you wanted to tell a lie, the devil was always willing and
ready to find the words for you. But my mistress will be saved ! "

A Guilty Silence. iii

" Let me see," resumed Mr. Dawkins, who prided himself on his
acquaintance with all the local gossip of Helsingham, " are not you
and young Ringe, the carpenter, engaged to be married ? "

" We are," said Esther ; and with that she began to cry as if her
heart would break. Since the moment of her confession, no thought
of Silas, nor of the effect it might have upon him, had entered her
head. Her one great idea — the exculpation of her beloved mistress
— had made her oblivious for the time being of all other consequences,
so that the words of Mr. Dawkins came upon her with all the freshness
of an utter surprise. What would Silas think and do ? Would he
make her his wife when she came out of prison ? No, no ! In spite
of his love for her, he would never do that. " Oh, my poor heart !
my poor heart ! " cried Esther aloud, as these thoughts flashed through
her mind. And she sank on her knees on the garden pathway, and
covered her face with her hands, and wept still more bitterly.

" Come, my poor girl, this will never do," said Mr. Dawkins in a
husky voice. " Things may turn out better than we expect. Let us
go into the house."

After a few minutes' private conversation with Miss Easterbrook,
who, notwithstanding her distress of mind at the tidings told her, was
still secretly glad that her favourite Miss Davenant had nothing to do
with this ugly business of the stolen letter, Mr. Dawkins quitted
Irongate House, taking the ebony casket with him. He turned as he
was on the point of leaving the room, and going up to Esther, who
was kneeling on the floor with her face buried in the sofa cushions, he
said, " Do you still persist in the statement you made to me in the
garden ? "

No reply in words, but, after a few seconds, an almost imperceptible
nod of the head.

Then Mr. Dawkins went. His last words to Miss Easterbrook
were — " Do not question her ; rather try to comfort her."

There was no need to tell Miss Easterbrook to do that.

Two hours later. Sergeant Stuffer, in plain clothes, drove up to
Irongate House in a cab. He came to arrest Esther Sarel, who stood
charged on a warrant with stealing a letter, the property of the
Postmaster-General.

Esther, who was very calm now, washed her hands and face,
smoothed her hair, and put on clean collar and cuffs, and then said
that she was ready. Miss Easterbrook pressed the girl to her heart.
"God bless you, my dear," she said, with tears in her eyes, "and
deliver you out of your trouble ! To-morrow I will come and see
you."

Esther smiled a sweet, sad smile, and pressed Miss Easterbrook's
hand to her lips. Then she got into the cab ; Sergeant Stuffer followed ;
and through the darkness of the November night, Esther was driven
off to prison.

{To be continued^

112

A LOYAL HEART.

By F. M. F. Skene.

IV.

WHEN Ernest Vilalta again awoke to consciousness, only an hour
or two later, it was with the sensation of a soft touch, first on
his hand, then on his cheek. He opened his eyes, and in the clear
starlight he was able to discern the great head of his faithful dog
Leo, pressed close to his face, rubbing him gently with his warm lips
and tongue in the effort to revive him.

The intelligent animal had been left in the camp when the force to
which Ernest belonged had ridden out to meet the French in the
terrible combat of the previous day ; but when he saw the scattered
troops returning, and the one officer to whom his whole being was
devoted not among them, the wonderful instinct of his affection had
driven him away at once to roam through the darkness of the night
over the battle-field, till among all the prostrate forms lying there he
succeeded in finding his beloved master.

And again we must pause to state, as we have done with respect
to other portions of our little history, that this is no fictitious incident.

" My Leo — my good dog ! " murmured Ernest faintly ; and the fine
animal, overwhelmed with delight at the sound of the well-known voice,
tried with all his might to dig away the snow from around his master.

" Ah, poor Leo," sighed Ernest, " that is of no use. You must get
better help than your own if you want to save me."

The wise beast seemed to understand him. He ceased his wild
scratching at the snow with his great paws, whined uneasily for a few
minutes, then he seemed to have taken his resolution. Licking his
master's hand as with a last caress, he bounded away over the plain in
the direction of the camp.

The dog never slackened his pace for a moment till he reached the
tent where Steinsdorf, who was quite restored to health and had been
in action all day, lay buried in the heavy sleep of physical weariness.
Leo knew him well, for Ernest and he had become fast friends, and
were always together in the intervals of their active duties. He was
wearing his undress uniform, as the officers had always tp be ready for
any night attack, and one arm lay outside the rug that covered him.
The dog took the sleeve in his mouth and shook it violently until he
succeeded at last in awaking the tired man.

Steinsdorf looked up and by the light over the tent door recognized
his friend's favourite. " Why, Leo," he said, " what is the matter ?
Where is your master ? "

The animal answered by a long, mournful howl, and then taking

A Loyal Heart. 113

hold again of Steinsdorf he tried with all his might to drag him from
his couch. Next he darted to the entrance, looked back entreatingly
at the officer, and returning once more made every effort to induce
him to rise.

Steinsdorf understood the situation at once, for he knew the dog's
remarkable sagacity. Springing from his bed he roused his soldier
servant who was sleeping near him rolled in his cloak, and said :

" Get up at once ! Captain Vilalta is lying wounded on the field ;
the dog has found him and will guide us to him. Get some more
men with lanterns and follow me."

The rescue party were soon on their way — the dog rushing on in
front and going much faster than they, so that he had constantly to
retrace his steps. He led them, however, in an absolutely straight
line to the spot where Ernest lay, his feet and limbs embedded in the
snow, and one arm behind his head so that it was raised a little from
the ground.

Steinsdorf flashed the light of his lantern eagerly on his face, and
for a moment greatly feared that his friend was dead, so pallid and
inanimate was he ; but bending down over him he detected that he
still breathed, though he had lapsed into unconsciousness. After
wetting his lips with some wine they had brought, he directed the men
to raise him carefully on their shoulders and carry him back to the
camp.

Day was breaking when they reached Steinsdorf s tent and laid his
friend down on the rough couch he had quitted, and the army surgeon
was quickly brought to examine the wounded man. He shook his
head gravely over his condition. " The Herr Hauptman must be
taken to the nearest hospital at once," he said. " His foot must be
amputated without delay, and the operation cannot well be performed
here. I do not think he can live."

Steinsdorf obtained leave from his commanding officer to convey
his friend himself to the hospital — the same service which poor Ernest
had rendered to him in far less serious circumstances — but he could not
remain with him. Duty called him back to the camp, and it was not
until a few days later that he was able again to pay him a visit.

Steinsdorf was dismayed at the condition in which he then found
him. Ernest was alive — but that was all that could be said for him.
His foot had been amputated, but he was utterly prostrate, and fever
had set in. He did not recognize his friend ; indeed, he took no
notice of any one, but lay with closed eyes and white lips, through
which restoratives were sometimes forced. As in Steinsdorfs own
case, the nursing and care which could be given to Vilalta amongst
many other sufferers was quite inadequate to his critical state. It
was very evident that he must die if he remained in that crowded,
stifling ward with very small attention paid to him ; in fact, the
hospital surgeon said as much plainly.

" Then there would not be much more risk for his life if he were

114 ^ Loyal Heart.

put into an invalid bed in the train and sent on a day's journey ? "
asked Steinsdorf.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. " His chances are about
equally bad either way ! — it would be a desperate experiment to move
him ; but you are welcome to try it, if you like, for he will not live
many days if he remains here."

Steinsdorf was a bold, energetic man, and he took his resolution
at once. He would send Ernest, under suitable care, to the house
of his own parents at Augsburg, where he knew his mother and
Lottchen would nurse him with the most unremitting devotion, and
bring him back to life, if existence on this earth were still to be
granted him. Steinsdorf was the more set on carrying out this some-
what daring scheme, because he knew that he could no longer have
any opportunity of even seeing Ernest himself again : his regiment
had been summoned to the front with others in order to reinforce
the besiegers of Paris, and henceforth his post was to be beneath the
very walls of the beleaguered city, many leagues from the hospital
where his friend was lying. He had no doubt of his parents' entire
willingness to receive Ernest Vilalta under their roof, and do all they
could for him, as they were well aware of the services he had
rendered to their own son, when much less seriously wounded ; and
during the time that Steinsdorf himself lay in hospital, a very warm
friendship had sprung up between his sister Lottchen and the friend
who visited him as often as he could.

That same evening Steinsdorf succeeded in getting Ernest carefully
conveyed in the ambulance to the train, where he was placed in an
invalid carriage under the care of one of the hospital officials, who
agreed, on the receipt of a large bribe, to attend him as far as
Augsburg. The next morning, when the train with its unconscious
passenger rolled into the Augsburg station in the grey winter's dawn,
Lottchen and her father were both there awaiting it ; and very soon
Ernest, whose life seemed flickering within him, like an expiring flame,
was laid down with all possible care in the best room of their house,
and a skilful doctor was quickly summoned to be in attendance on
him. The issue remained, however, doubtful for a very long time.

Meantime in the old English manor-house the anxiety respecting
Ernest's fate had merged almost into despair, at least in the mother's
heart.

Christine had seen her dear old father laid in his last resting-place
beside the unforgotten wife of his youth, and his peaceful departure
had seemed so fair a Euthanasia at a time when the newspapers were full
of daily statements as to the slaughter and cruelties of the terrible war,
that she felt as if it would be wrong to regret him. Yet she missed him
sadly. His cheerful patience and simple childlike faith had helped to
support her under all her previous trials, and the courage he had been
wont to impart, seemed to fail her now when she was oppressed by
cares of many difierent kinds.

A Loyal Heart, •« 115

It was seldom, indeed, that her husband could manage to send her
a few words by the balloon post, or by means of a carrier pigeon ;
and then he could only tell her of the sufferings caused within the
walls of Paris by the protracted siege, and ask her anxiously for the
tidings of their soldier son, which she was so mournfully unable to
give him.

Even within the quiet old home there were causes for great anxiety.
After the General's death, Alba had completely succumbed to the long
strain and fatigue of sleepless nights which she had borne in her
attendance on him without ever uttering a word of complaint, or
seeking for the smallest relaxation. Indeed, the extent to which she
had been tried by her ceaseless ministrations to the old man she
loved so well, had never been understood even by those living under
the same roof with her. There could be no mistake, however, as to
the low fever which fell upon her when her energetic endurance was
no longer required, and she lay for weeks in a state of extreme nervous
exhaustion.

Christine nursed her tenderly, and Elvira brought her sunny
presence into the sick-room w^henever her cousin was well enough to
be amused by her lively conversation. But poor Ferdinand, excluded
from even seeing her who was the very light of his days, wandered
about like a restless ghost, finding no comfort anywhere.

His conscience also smote him with regard to his brother. He
felt that he ought, long before, to have made the only available
effort for obtaining tidings of him, by going himself to the seat of
war, there to ascertain, if possible, what his fate had really been.
Ferdinand still retained his conviction that Ernest was yet alive ; but
he thought it very probable that he had been taken prisoner by the
French, or was lying wounded and forlorn in some distant spot. In
any case it seemed clearly his duty to go in search of him.

It was drawing towards Christmas in that fateful year, and it may
be remembered, by those who recall the history of that perturbed
time, that a little later a truce of very short duration was effected
between the city of Paris and the besiegers in order to give time for
negotiations that, it was hoped, might end the war. Rumours of this
impending cessation of hostilities had reached the Manor House and
were eagerly discussed by Ferdinand and his mother.

" Do you think it would be at all possible for us to return to Paris
at once if the truce should be prolonged ? " said Ferdinand, anxiously, to
Christine, as they sat together poring over the war tidings in the Times.

It had occurred to him that if they could return to France at once,
taking Alba with them, he might prosecute the search for his brother
without any prolonged separation from her.

" Impossible ! " answered his mother. " How could you even
think of such a scheme ? The whole country is in a distracted state,
and the people in Paris are starving. The city cannot be suf^ciently
provisioned again under many weeks. Your father would never allow

ii6 A Loyal Heart.

me to return. I should care nothing what hardships I went through
myself, could I only be with him and Ernest — if it is ever given me
to look on my boy's dear face again," she added, with a sob. " But I
am bound to consider your sister's welfare, and France is no place just
now for a delicate young girl."

Two or three days afterwards Elvira was sent to Ferdinand with a
message from Alba that she wished to see him. It was the first time
that she had been so far recovered as to be moved out of her bed-
room, so that the young man's heart beat high as he followed his
sister eagerly to the little boudoir where Alba was to be allowed to
remain for a few hours that day. After she had ushered him in,
Elvira softly closed the door and left them alone.

Alba was lying on a sofa near the window, and, for a moment,
Ferdinand could not utter a syllable in his deep emotion at sight of
the change which illness had \vrought in her. If she had been
beautiful in her days of health and activity, she seemed to him
now to be endowed with an ethereal loveliness scarce belonging
to earth at all. Ferdinand raised one of her small white hands
almost reverentially to his lips in silence, and Alba, seeing how much
he was moved, asked him to sit down beside her, and spoke for a few
minutes on indifferent subjects. Then when she saw that he had
quite recovered his equanimity she lifted her clear, shining eyes to his
face and said quietly :

" Now, dear Fernan, I must tell you why I asked you to come and
see ,-me. I wished to say that to you which has been lying heavy on
my mind all through these weeks ; but it was not a matter I could
broach to your mother. Fernan," she continued, almost solemnly, as
he looked inquiringly towards her, " why do you not go in search of
your brother ? "

At these words the crimson tide mounted to his very forehead in
the rush of conflicting feelings they evoked ; but he did not speak.
She went on, very gently :

" Forgive me for venturing to advise you, but I know that there is
none other in this house who could do so. Elvira is too young and
thoughtless, and your mother cannot bid you go ; for it might be to
send her only remaining son into danger. Yet do you not see how
terribly she is tried, mentally and physically, by this cruel suspense
about Ernest ? I think it will kill her if it goes on much longer."

Ferdinand's hands were clenched in the effort to repress the bitterly
painful feelings that overpowered him. Was it for Ernest's sake only
then that Alba had sent for him ? Was it of his brother alone she had
been thinking all this time ? Alba could not guess what was in his
mind as he had turned his face away from her ; but she believed she
had a painful duty to perform on poor Christine's account, and she
went steadily on with it.

" This interval of the truce will make it a very safe time for you to
go, Fernan ; it seems to have come most opportunely."

A Loyal Heart. 117

He started as if he had been stung ; and his look was almost fierce
as he exclaimed : " Alba, is it possible you can insult me by supposing
that danger to myself has kept me back ? "

" I could hardly believe it," she answered ; " it was so unlike you,
Fernan. Yet, I will own I have not been able to understand the
reason of your delay."

He sprang to his feet and began to pace up and down the room,
struggling vehemently with himself. At last he came back to the sofa
where Alba lay, and looking down on her lovely face, said, hoarsely :

" If you would know the reason of my delay, Alba, it was simply
that I could not leave you in your dangerous illness."

How poor, how meaningless seemed these words ! All that he
dared to say, compared with the storm of passionate feeling that was
raging in his breast — goading him to pour out to her, then and there,
all the boundless love he bore her — the hopes of his whole life's
happiness which centred in her alone.

Yet, as Alba heard them, she raised her head involuntarily to turn on
him a look only for one moment, and instantaneously withdrawn, which
sent a thrill of delight through his whole being. It seemed like a
flash of revelation as to what he was to her in truth ; but so quickly
was it veiled under the white eyelids, which closed as if she were
growing faint, that he could not tell if he had seen aright. He feared
it was a mere fancy on his part, for there was no gleam of the same
tender expression in her eyes when she opened them again ; and he
said to her calmly :

" Alba, whether I have been right or wrong, I will do now what-
ever you ask me. Do you wish me to go away at once in search of
Ernest ? "

Her colour went and came for a moment, leaving her at last deadly
pale ; she clasped her hands tightly together, and said :

" I wish you to do what is right : to relieve your mother's cruel
anxiety — to be true to your brother."

" That is enough," he answered quickly. " I start to-night. Alba,
farewell ! " He bent down, kissed her hand once more, and left the
room.

V.

Ferdinand kept his word to Alba, and started that same night on his
difficult quest. His mother did not even wish to hold him back, as
she might have done, in spite of her devouring anxiety about Ernest,
had she not believed that the short truce would render his expedition
comparatively safe. She loaded him with letters and messages for his
father, imagining that it would be possible for him to penetrate into
Paris during the temporary suspension of the bombardment ; and with
the same idea Fernan made straight for the ramparts, when he had

ii8 A Loyal Heart.

been brought as near the invested city as the disorganized raihvays
could convey him.

There, however, he found the tremendous forces of the Prussian
army immovably massed around the walls ; and in spite of the truce,
neither ingress nor egress was possible. He could not hope therefore
for the assistance which he had thought his father's position might
have given him. His only resource was to try to obtain access to the
colonel of his brother's regiment and ,make inquiries from him.

It was no easy matter to force his way into this officer's presence,
for he was deeply engaged making all manner of arrangements for a
renewal of active hostilities, as orders had come from headquarters
that the truce was to be brought to an end almost immediately. His
tent was crowded with officers, and it was some time before Ferdinand
could obtain a hearing at all. Then, w^hen he had made known his
desire to ascertain the fate of his brother, he only received a somewhat
curt and unsatisfactory answer.

" Do you suppose at such a time as this we can tell what becomes
of every man that is sent wounded into hospital or left on the field ?
Vilalta fell in the engagement which deprived us of many a good
soldier just before we moved to the front. I believe he was not
killed on the spot, but I suppose he may have died since, for I know
his name has been erased from the roll of our troops."

The colonel spoke quickly and harshly enough, but he was not with-
out feeling, for seeing that the young man who had addressed him grew
deadly white at his words, he called out in a loud imperative voice :

" Does any one here know whether Captain Vilalta survived his
wounds or not ? "

A young officer disengaged himself from the crowd, and coming
forward, saluted the colonel as he said :

" He did, sir, for a time."

" Speak out, then ; say what you know and have done with it.
Satisfy this gentleman and let us get back to business ; we have no
time to waste."

" I was in hospital when Hauptman Vilalta was brought in. He
was alive, but that was all ; his foot was amputated the same day.
He was removed in the ambulance quite insensible a few days after,
and I never heard of him again." He repeated his salute and retired.

" That is all we can tell you, sir," said the colonel, addressing
Ferdinand. " I think you may conclude the poor fellow has suc-
cumbed to the fortune of war. A glorious death after all ! Good
morning, sir."

The colonel beckoned to his officers, who pressed in round the
table where he sat, and Fernan had no resource but to make his way,
giddy and heart-sick, to the door of the tent, quite overcome by the
tidings he had received. There, however, he was met by the young
officer who had spoken, and was evidently moved with compassion
for him.

A Loyal Heart, 119

" I can give you one clue," he said, " by which you may perhaps
learn the fate of your brother. He was removed from the hospital by
an ofificer who was his greatest friend, Herr Steinsdorf. He does not
belong to our regiment, but he is in camp, and I can give you the
number and name of the troop he belongs to."

Ferdinand thanked him eagerly. He knew the name of Steinsdorf
well, for Ernest had often mentioned him in his letters, after giving
the history of his first acquaintance with him, and a gleam of hope
filled his heart that he might hear his brother was yet alive.

He spent nearly the whole day traversing the Prussian lines under
the ramparts from end to end before he was at last directed to the
tent where Steinsdorf was preparing for such brief rest as an officer on
duty may obtain. Exhausted by fatigue, and feverish with anxiet}^,
Ferdinand almost staggered into the presence of his brother's friend.
He could not wait for any ceremony of introduction, but held out his
hands, exclaiming : " I am Ferdinand Vilalta ; can you tell me if my
brother Ernest yet lives ? "

" Ferdinand Vilalta ! " said Steinsdorf, starting to his feet and
warmly grasping the hand of his visitor. " Welcome a thousand times !
Yes, thank heaven, the dear fellow is alive — did you not know it ?
He is at Augsburg with my parents."

The relief from the long strain of anxiety was so great, that Fernan,
strong man as he was, sank into a chair. Steinsdorf hastily got some
wine, which soon revived his unexpected guest, and then taking a seat
beside him, prepared to tell him all he wished to know.

" Did you come here to seek for Ernest ? " he said. " But surely
you have had his letters telling you where he was ? "

" No, indeed ! we have not received a single word from him for
m^any weeks. We have been devoured with anxiety, especially my
poor mother."

" Ah ! he has often spoken to me of her and of you, his twin
brother ! But I cannot understand your not having heard from him.
My sister, who has been helping to nurse him, told me she had
written to his mother for him many times — he dictated the letters
to her."

Here we may as well explain the mystery of these missing letters,
which Ferdinand afterwards discovered. Lottchen had in truth written
the loving epistles, in which Ernest sent all details of his state to his
mother, and addressed them most carefully " to the gracious lady,
Senora Vilalta at the Manor House, England," but she entirely
forgot to put the name of the post town in addition, so that the letters
wandered about from county to county bearing innumerable post-
marks and hieroglyphics till — as in the disturbed state of Germany
they could not be returned to Augsburg — they are supposed to have
vanished into infinite space and were never more heard of.

Ferdinand and Steinsdorf sat together for some time, going over all
the details of Ernest's history since the night when his faithful dog

120 A Loyal Heart

had found him in the snow and brought him the timely succour
whereby his Hfe was saved. Then, after a long conversation, Steinsdorf
insisted that Ferdinand should accept his hospitality for that night and
remain with him in his tent till he started for Augsburg next day, and
that being amicably settled they were both soon fast asleep on their
rough couches.

Meantime, in the happy family home at Augsburg, the good Steinsdorfs
had been keeping their Christmas feast with all the quaint pretty
customs which make that joyful season of the year so pleasant in
Germany. They had extended their festivities to the day of the
"Three Kings," as Twelfth Night is there designated, and theghttering
Christmas tree had been lighted up again that evening for the last
time.

Among the presents which had been handed down from it, was the
daintiest pair of crutches that could be manufactured of polished
wood, with blue velvet cushions to support the arms and silver bands
to strengthen the sticks and prevent any risk of their breaking when
used. These had been given with a thousand tender good wishes to
Ernest Vilalta, the beloved guest whom the most devoted care had
nursed back to life.

After many weeks of fever and much pain and weakness, he was at
last quite convalescent, and had for some days been able to lie on a
sofa in the common sitting-room into which he was wheeled from his
bed ; but he had made no attempt to move about on his mutilated
limb, till the timely present of the crutches tempted him to try.

On the day after Twelfth Night he did with their help manage to
convey himself once or twice the whole length of the room, but it
must be owned that it was rather a clumsy performance and very
fatiguing to him, so that he was glad to lay the crutches aside and lie
down once more on his couch, with Lottchen, his indefatigable nurse,
sitting beside him. There was no one else in the room, but her com-
pany was all he could possibly desire, and he watched her with admiring
eyes, as she employed her deft little hands on some silken embroidery
while she talked to him in the clear sweet tones of her charming
voice, and turned her bright face towards him with sympathetic eyes
and sunny smile. She spoke in English, although, of course,
Ernest was quite familiar with German ; but Lottchen said she had
given herself a great deal of trouble to learn the language of his
fatherland, so she wished to practise it now ; and Ernest often smiled
at her translations of the long interwoven sentences of her native idiom.
He was not smiling, however, now. He was looking extremely sad,
and the eyes which he bent on her fair sweet face were full of a mourn-
ful yearning which could not fail to attract her attention. She glanced
at him anxiously once or twice ; then let her work drop from her
hands and turned to him with much concern.

" Herr Ernest, what has caused the sorrowful shadow that seems
to have fallen over you to-day ? "

A Loyal Heart, 121

*' I have more reasons to feel sad than I dare tell you, Fraiilein
Lottchen," he answered. " You know that now I am almost well
enough to travel, and am bound to leave very soon this hospitable
home where I have received such unspeakable kindness from the
dearest and most generous friends in the world. I have, indeed,
trespassed on their goodness far too long."

*' Ah, no ! do not say that," exclaimed Lottchen, impulsively ; " it
has been the most highly prized happiness to have you here for us all.
Our Wilhelm's friend," she added, as if she feared she had spoken too
warmly ; then continuing : " It will be great pain to part, no doubt, but
you have promised to come back to see us very soon. You have
often spoken of the joy it will be to you to see your gracious lady
mother again ; she must be cruelly longing for you."

" Yes," he said ; " it will be blessed indeed to see my dear mother.
It has troubled me that she has not answered any of the letters you
so kindly wrote for me ; but I suppose the war has put all the posts
into confusion. When, however, these first days of pleasant reunion
are over, what remains to me but a dreary expanse of life without the
faintest hope of that which alone could make it happy or valuable to
me ? "

Lottchen looked up at him with a questioning gaze in her soft brown
eyes.

" I do not know what that hope is of which you speak," she said.
" Do you not understand," he answered, hesitatingly, " that a
mother's love, however precious, is not all that a man requires to bless
and brighten his life ? There is a closer companionship for which he
must pine, without which the whole world is a desert to him."

She still kept her eyes with their eloquent question turned towards
him, until he added in a lower tone :

" I mean the love of a wife — a second self."

At these words the wild-rose tint of Lottchen's pretty complexion
flushed to a bright crimson. She caught up her embroidery again
and tried to work at it with trembling hands. Ernest gazed at her
with intense eagerness, and as she did not speak, he added gently :

" Can you not feel for me, Fraiilein Lottchen, knowing me to be for
ever deprived of that best hope ? "

" I do not know it," said the straightforward little German. " Why
should you not possess that hope like other men, Herr Ernest ? "

" Is this no reason ? " he asked, vehemently, snatching up one of
the crutches which lay by his side. " Am I not to be for all the rest
of my life a helpless cripple, dismissed from the army, incapable of
getting my own living — therefore, almost a pauper : for my father
cannot give me much. A useless burden, in short, upon my family.
Should I not be a selfish, senseless wretch if I dared to ask any woman
to share such a life as that with me ? "

" Not if she loved you," said Lottchen, steadily, though she did not
raise her eyes.

VOL. LIV. I

122 A Loyal Heart.

Ernest started up from his cushions, leaning forward to grasp her
hand, though hterally unconscious in his excitement, that he had
done so.

" But, Lottchen," he said, eagerly, '• think for a moment. If even
it were possible that there could be one so dear, so self-forgetting, as to
care a little for a poor maimed cripple like myself, could it possibly be
right for me to take advantage of such goodness, andito bind her down
for ever to a hard, dull existence — nursing a poor invalid — deprived
of all the gaieties and amusements into which he could not enter ? ''

" You do not take the right view of it," she said, with grave
composure. " If she loved him, she would rejoice ; not that he should
suffer, but that, as suffering was in the wise providence of God
assigned him, she should thus be able for that very reason to be more
to him than a wife could be to a gallant officer, with all the glories of
the world open before him." Her voice trembled slightly as she
spoke, and Ernest caught both her hands in his and exclaimed, wildly,
passionately, with all his soul in his eyes :

" Lottchen, do you know what you are saying ? You are giving
me hope that you — even you — will come to be the angel of my
broken life. For you know — yes, you must know — it is you whom I
love — whom I have loved since the first day when I saw you in your
sweetness standing by your brother's bedside. Oh, Lottchen, dare I
believe that it could be enough of happiness to you to share my
existence, maimed and helpless as I am ? Dare I ask of you so
great a blessing ? "

She turned her fair, truthful face towards him, tears in her brown
eyes, soft flushes on her cheek, and said, with strong emotion :

" Not only would it be enough of happiness, but it would be all
this earth could ever give me. I seek, I ask no other. Ernest, I
think that I should die if I were parted from you,'" — and she let her
head fall upon his hands, sobbing aloud. After that, we need not
attempt to describe the blissful hour those two childlike lovers spent
together, revealing to each other in most minute detail, a fact which
had been patent to every one who had witnessed their intercourse for
many weeks before.

But the poverty Ernest had so pathetically mourned would not be
theirs. The Steinsdorfs were wealthy people, and they had always
intended that Lotta should have such a portion as would enable her to
marry whom she pleased. Already the whole plenishing of her future
home had been prepared by her careful mother, and there were in-
numerable cupboards filled with snowy white linen, and chests full of
silver plate, and other bountiful supplies, so that the young couple
could be established in comfort without any delay.

That same evening a formal betrothal took place between Ernest
Vilalta and Lotta Steinsdorf in presence of the whole household, as is
the custom in Germany, and the good old pastor, who was afterwards
to marry them, was invited to attend and give them his blessing.

A Loyal Heart. 123

There was one spectator of this preHminary ceremony who appeared
to be most deeply interested in it. The great dog, Leo, placed
himself in front of the young couple, and gazed with the utmost
attention at Ernest, while he placed on Lottchen's finger the only ring
he had ever worn himself. It was of plain gold, bearing a little shield
on which was engraved the arms of the Vilalta family, and he told
her smiling, that it effectually proved she already belonged to them.
When all was done, and the pastor had departed, Lottchen gravely
decked Leo with white satin ribbons in token of his participation
in their wedding joys.

VL

Two days after the betrothal of Ernest and Lottchen, Ferdinand
Vilalta arrived at Augsburg, and hastened as quickly as possible to
the abode of the Steinsdorfs. There as it happened he was met at the
door by the good house-mother herself, who welcomed him with the
utmost delight, and having ushered him into the invalid's room, gently
closed the door and left the brothers together.

Their joy in this almost unhoped for reunion was inexpressible,
and only when they had grown composed did Ferdinand burst into
passionate expressions of thankfulness that Ernest was restored to them
after their long anguish of suspense and fear.

" And after all," he exclaimed, " our terrors were scarcely worse
than the reality. I have heard from Wilhelm Steinsdorf of your
terrible night in the snow, alone with your desperate wounds. The
marvel is indeed that you did not succumb to the cold and pain of
that cruel vigil."

" There is my preserver," said Ernest, pointing to Leo, who was
couched close to him on the lower end of the sofa, and Ferdinand
flung his arms round the huge animal and gave him a vehement
caress.

" But tell me now of them all at home," exclaimed Ernest. " My
mother — how is she ? Did she not receive my letters ? I sent her
many after the fever left me and I regained my consciousness."

" She never had one of them," said Ferdinand, " and I do not
think she could physically have borne up much longer. But that
is all over now ; I telegraphed from Versailles to tell her you were safe
after I had seen Steinsdorf."

" And, Ferdinand, tell me — my grandfather ? "

Ernest fixed his eyes with a peculiar expression on his brother as he
spoke. The answer, of course, was given sorrowfully enough that the
good old man had passed away many weeks previously.

" I knew it," said Ernest, in a low voice. " Was it not on the
same date as the night in which I lay wounded in the snow ? "

" Now I think of it, I believe it was precisely then," said Ferdinand
surprised. " But how did you hear of his death ? "

I 2

124 A Loyal Heart.

" I did not hear of it ; but, Ferdinand — I saw him. He came and
stood beside me when life seemed at its lowest ebb and I was almost
in despair. He came, and said words to me which raised me up
again to faith and hope and perseverance — words that will abide with
me as a source of strength for all the rest of my life."

Feman listened in astonishment. " It must have been a dream,"
he said at last.

" Perhaps so ; I cannot tell," replied Ernest. " My conviction at
the time was that I had never been more perfectly wide-awake — the
pain of my wounds had kept me from sleeping. But the manner of
his appearance to me can make no difference as to its weighty
influence on my life. I can never forgot the words he spoke and
they will be a law to me for evermore."

He seemed unwilling to continue the subject, and passed on quickly
to ask various questions about the other members of the family and
their future plans. Then he spoke of the wonderful kindness the
Steinsdorfs had shown him, and with what care and tenderness he had
been nursed through his long dreary illness. And now, Feman," he
said, while joy lit up his whole face, " I have a special friend to whom
I must introduce you."

He touched a little silver bell which stood on the table near him,
and when the servant whom it had summoned appeared, he told him
to beg Fraiilein Lotta to be good enough to come to him.

" Ah, you mean Steinsdorfs sister," said Fernan ; " he told me hov/
carefully she had tended you."

" Yes," said Ernest, as Lottchen came into the room, looking
specially winrJng and charming with her mingled smiles and blushes.
" Steinsdorfs sister certainly, but something more." He took her
hand, and drawing her forward placed it in that of his brother.
" Your sister also, Fernan, for she is a part of myself — my betrothed
— my future wife."

Ferdinand sprang to his feet with a strange incoherent cr>', which
surprised Ernest very much.

" Your betrothed ! Your future wife ! " he cried. " You love
her ! Tell me, Ernest, is it so — or am I dreaming ? Are you really
bound for ever to this lady ? Will you never seek to win any other ? "

" I should think not, indeed," said Ernest, half angrily. " Have I
not told you she is my betrothed ? I do not understand you, Fernan.
Can you look at her and think it extraordinary that I should love her
and her alone in all the world ? "

" No, no ! You mistake me," said Ferdinand, who had succeeded
while his brother spoke in stilling his wildly beating heart. " There
is, indeed, no ground for surprise, but only for the truest joy. I think
you are happy beyond words to have gained so beautiful a prize, and
I am scarce less happy in ^^^nning this charming sister." He kissed
Lottchen's hand with the courtly grac e which was a characteristic of
all the family. Then he went on to tell Lottchen how his parents

I

A Loyal Heart. 125

would welcome her as their dear daughter, and how delighted Elvira
would be to have a sister of her own to love and cherish.

Ernest listened well pleased, but when Lottchen took the oppor-
tunity of a break in the conversation to slip quietly out of the
room, her lover did not detain her, for he felt certain there must have
been some cause for his brother's excitement, and he was anxious to
penetrate the mystery at once. No sooner had the door closed on
Lottchen, than he said imperiously, " Now, Fernan, tell me what you
meant by your strange manner. Is it possible you can object to my
engagement, having seen my peerless Lotta ? "

" No, indeed," said Fernan, half laughing, " quite the contrary.
The truth is I was so overjoyed that I was almost beside myself; I
felt as if you had suddenly opened the doors of a paradise to me."

" I beUeve I have opened the doors of a paradise to myself, but
how on earth can I have done so for you ? a sister-in-law, however
charming, does not make a man's happiness," said Ernest brusquely.

" No," murmured Fernan, " but there is only one in all this world
who can make my happiness, and I have feared that I might never
dare to seek her love if my twin brother had stood between her and
me as I thought he did."

"I ! " exclaimed Ernest. " I have never loved any one but
Lottchen. Of whom do you speak, Ferdinand ? "

" Of Alba Wyndham."

^' Alba ! is it so indeed — do you love her, Ferdinand ? "

" More than my life," said Ferdinand, with deep emotion ; " I have
loved her from the first moment we ever met, but I believed that she
was as dear, as precious to you as she was to me, and I could not
bring myself to blast the whole life of my twin brother. But," he
added smiling, " I am free now to tell Alba of my love. And now,
Ernest, you are tired and must rest awhile."

Next morning Ferdinand came down to breakfast with a strong
determination in his own mind that he would start that same evening
for England, in order that he might put his fate to the final test, and
learn if Alba did indeed love him well enough to be his wife. He
little dreamt of the stumbling-block that lay even then as a formidable
barrier on his homeward path. When the excellent coffee, made by
Lottchen's own little hands, and the long German rolls had duly
provided a very pleasant repast, the good Frau Steinsdorf intimated
to Ferdinand that she wished to speak to him alone ; so he followed
her to her room and sat down beside her while she entered on the
subject she wished to discuss.

She then informed him that his opportune arrival removed a great
difficulty from their arrangements, which had been troubling herself
and her husband very much. Now that Ernest was convalescent it
was clearly his duty, as it was indeed his wish, to go home and give
his mother the comfort of seeing him alive and well after all her cruel
anxiety on his account.

126 A Loyal Heart.

" But," continued the lady, " neither Ernest nor Lottchen can
endure the idea of being parted. In fact, as regards my daughter,
nothing would induce her to allow her beloved to go alone on that
long trying journey in his still weak state of health. Of course she
can only go with him as his wife, and that might be accomplished ;
but both her father and I myself feel most strongly that we could not
allow an inexperienced young girl to set out without any protector
for your distant Fatherland in charge of a helpless invalid. Now,
however, your fortunate arrival, Herr Ferdinand, has happily solved
the problem. With you as an escort from Augsburg to England our
child and her lover will be perfectly safe. We have decided then, my
spouse and myself, to ask you to remain with us for the time necessary
to complete the wedding arrangements, and then to accompany the
young married couple to your family home."

"To remain here — not to start for England at once ! " exclaimed
Ferdinand, literally stumbling over his words in the consternation
which seized him at this exasperating proposal. " But for what length
of time do you mean me to stay ? Not more than one day surely,
you cannot intend that I should delay any longer ? "

" One day," said Frau Steinsdorf, smiling, " that would indeed be
a rapid form of nuptials. I think I need not say to you it is im-
possible ; three weeks' notice must be given for a marriage to take
place in our pastor's church, and after that again there are some
ceremonies to be gone through. One month will be the shortest
possible time for all formalities, as well as the preparations for our
Lottchen's long journey, so we shall hope, Herr Ferdinand, to have the
honour and pleasure of entertaining you for that period in our modest
home, where your presence gives a much-desired pleasure."

With that the good lady made him an elaborate curtsey, and
quitted the room, beaming with satisfaction that she had so happily
brought her plans to a favourable issue, leaving Ferdinand absolutely
speechless with horror and amazement at the prospect of a month's
separation from his beloved Alba, a month's tormenting doubts and
fears as to his ultimate fate.

For a long time — he never knew how long — he remained plunged
in the depths of desolation and despair. At length his loyal heart re-
asserted itself. After all it was for his Ernest — his twin brother — he
was asked to do this ; would he not be vile and selfish to refuse ? and
with one long sigh poor Fernan gave up the struggle and yielded to
this last sacrifice.

VII.

Ferdinand had one consolation in the detention at Augsburg which
had cost him such a cruel struggle, that at least he could Amte to his
Alba without even an hour's delay. And he did so. The month
of penance passed slowly enough, but he was able to bear it more

A Loyal Heart, 127

patiently than he could have hoped, from the certainty that his Alba
would know all he felt for her long before he could hope to come into
her dear presence.

At last, however, all the elaborate preparations for the marriage of
the precious daughter of the house were completed, and the blissful
wedding-day arrived. Ferdinand drove with his brother to the little
Protestant church, where the pretty Lottchen presently came with her
parents, looking very charming in her bridal robes. Ernest, radiant
with happiness, took his place by her side, and the old pastor
solemnly united them, and then preached a little sermon on the
duties of married persons. It struck Ferdinand that the good old
man was singularly like the pictures of Queen Elizabeth, for he wore
a rich black silk gown, trimmed with velvet, and a stiff lace ruff which
stood up round his neck to an amazing height. There was no doubt,
however, that he tied the knot most effectually, and that same after-
noon the young couple started on their way to England with their
kind brother, followed by the blessings and good wishes of all who
knew and loved little Lottchen.

It was a tedious and difficult journey, with many vexatious delays,
and sad sights from the disastrous effects of the war were continually
around them as they made their slow way to the English shores.
Fernan congratulated himself often that he had not left Ernest and
Lottchen to battle unaided with all the unpleasant episodes that met
them by the way. He was so moved by compassion, indeed, at sight
of the condition to which his brother, once so strong and active, was
reduced by his lameness, that he voluntarily suggested their remaining
one day in London, in order that he might be measured for a
mechanical foot which would render him less helpless in moving
about.

The four-and-twenty hours spent there for this purpose was the last
delay which Ferdinand was called upon to endure by his noble loyalty
to his brother.

At length, on the evening of a bright spring day, they reached the
old Manor House where his fate was to be decided, and he was to
learn whether his lovely Alba was to become, as he had expressed it in
his letter to her, the angel of his life. The meeting amongst them
all, which took place as soon as Ernest could be assisted up the steps
into, the hall, was full of excitement and emotion to the whole family,
and perhaps none but Alba herself observed that Fernan grew
perfectly white in the dread suspense of the moment, for although he
saw once more the fair angelic face that had haunted his dreams by
night and his thoughts by day since he last had looked upon her, it
was impossible that he could speak to her amid all the impassioned
greetings that were going on around him.

There was the first rapturous embrace between Christine and the
beloved son she had mourned as dead, and then the quick turning to
welcome the young wife and thank her with deepest gratitude for all

128 A Loyal Heart

the care and tenderness she had bestowed on Ernest, even before he
was her own. Then Elvira claimed attention from both her brothers
and from the new sister whom she was delighted to welcome, and
Alba was warmly greeted by Ernest, while Fernan could only gaze on
her with beseeching eyes and lips silent from the very strength of his
emotion. Leo the faithful dog, who had of course accompanied them
from Augsburg, was not forgotten in this happy meeting, and the
marvellous service he had rendered to Ernest was present in the
minds of all as they bestowed on him many a warm caress.

Then they passed into the drawing-room, which Elvira had deco-
rated with laurel and myrtle in honour of the wedding of her hero
brother, and there Lottchen was divested of her hat and cloak so
that they could see more clearly the bright happy face of Ernest's
bride, and bestow fresh kisses on it in their pleasure at the charming
sight.

" Now I am sure you are all famished," said Christine, when the
first joyful excitement had somewhat subsided, " and you must be
very tired, too ; so I think you had better all come to supper, which is
quite ready in the dining-room. After that we must let you go to
bed to have a good night's rest, though I feel as if I could hardly part
from any one of you even for those few hours."

She put her arm round Lottchen, as she spoke, and let her away,
while Elvira followed with Ernest, to whom she was chattering gaily,
telling him how charmed she was with his pretty bride, and much
more in the same strain to which he listened eagerly.

Thus for one moment, as they all passed out at the door, Alba and
Fernan were alone together, for he had impulsively laid a detaining
grasp on her arm. Looking down into her pure sweet face with
straining eyes, almost breathless, he exclaimed : " Alba, you have had
my letter. Tell me, tell me "

He could say no more in his agitation. Then she raised the
forget-me-not blue eyes, shining through bright tears of emotion, to his
own, and yielding both her hands to his grasp, said in the low musical
tones he knew so well :

" Oh, Fernan, I have always loved you — all my life ! "

Neither of them could add another word, for Elvira came running
back to beg them to hasten, as their mother was anxious Ernest and
Lottchen should have their supper. But it was enough even for
Fernan's ardent longing. Alba went quickly on with Elvira, and he
followed in a dream of ecstasy which made him answer often in a
very irrelevant manner to the remarks which were addressed to him at
the supper-table. His mother glanced at him once or twice with a
smile on her lips, and she detained him after the others had wished
her good-night and gone to their rooms.

" My Fernan," she said, " this is a most blissful day for us all, but
I think you have found a special happiness of your own, have you
not?" • .. . •

A Loyal Heart. 129

*' Yes, indeed ! Oh, mother ! Alba is mine, the dearest, sweetest —
ah, you do not know how I have loved her, though I dared not speak
of it."

" I think I did know it very well, my son. Do you think a
mother's eyes can be blind to that which affects the happiness of her
children ? I was perfectly aware of your strong attachment to dear
Alba, and of hers for you. But I could not enter on the subject
with you so long as you were silent yourself respecting it. I have
never forced the confidence of my sons."

" Because they were always most ready and thankful to give it you,
dearest mother," said Ferdinand, warmly embracing Christine.

The mother and son stood for a moment locked in each other's
arms, and then she gently disengaged herself. Seeing that Fernan
was almost worn out with the fatigue and agitation he had gone
through, she said with a smile, " Now you must take my good-night
kiss, dear child, as in the days when you and Ernest would never go
to sleep in your little cots until you had received it. You can go to
rest with a most thankful heart, for I am well assured your generous
self-denial in the past will bring a special blessing on your married
life."

While these events were taking place at the Manor House, Paris,
after the long agony of the siege, was a prey to all the horrors of the
Commune. This rendered it still impossible for Christine to rejoin
her husband according to her earnest desire. But she was able to
communicate with him by letter, and having already told him of
Ernest's marriage and safe arrival in England, she wrote again as
quickly as possible to inform him of the engagement between Fernan
and Alba, and to ask his wishes as to their future arrangements.

His answer was not long in reaching them. It contained the
v/armest congratulations to both his sons for the happy alliances
which had been announced to him, but he added that as Ernest's
marriage had necessarily been contracted at a distance from his
parents, he much wished that they should be present at that of
Ferdinand. He, therefore, begged that his wedding with Alba might
take place in Paris, so soon as matters were sufficiently quiet there for
his family to return to him.

This could not be accomplished till two months later, but in the
course of the summer, order having been restored to France under
the Government of M. Thiers, the Vilaltas made their way back to
Paris, there to find many terrible traces of the war, and of the
Commune which had followed ; but there was nothing to prevent
them from remaining quietly in their own house so long as they
wished to do so. There Elvira found that her canaries had been
safely protected by her father, but he told her with a shudder at the
recollection of the scenes he had witnessed, that he believed they
were the only living creatures who had survived the siege.

M. Vilalta, himself, had suffered severely, and his health was much

130 A Loyal Heart.

broken in consequence — he felt unequal for the duties of the onerous
position he had held so long ; and this having been represented to
the Spanish authorities, he was recalled from France with the offer of
an appointment in his own country, which would tax his energies
much less. Christine, and indeed all the family, heard this news
with much satisfaction. They all loved Spain, and looked upon it as
their home ; and the arrangement was especially beneficial for Ernest,
as his father could appoint him his secretar}', with which employment
his lameness would in no sense interfere. Ferdinand would continue
his diplomatic career, and ultimately, of course, join any Legation to
which he might be attached ; but he was granted, in the meantime,
six months' leave on the occasion of his marriage, so that he and
Alba — his wife at last — accompanied their parents to Madrid in the
autumn of that same year.

A time of great peace and happiness ensued for the Vilaltas, and
it could hardly have been said to be disturbed by an event which
occurred somewhat later. Elvira, the one of all the family who
possessed the most thoroughly southern temperament, and was a
veritable Spaniard in every line of her piquante face, elected to
become the denizen of a northern home in the heart of Germany.
Wilhelm Steinsdorf came to pay a visit to his sister and his friends,
and there, after a very short time, fell prone at the feet of the
brilliant little beauty, declaring that he could not live without her.

Somewhat to the surprise of her parents, Elvira at once agreed to
link her fate with his, and left her sunny Spanish home for Augsburg.

Christine felt considerable anxiety as to how her gay, bright-
hearted little daughter would accommodate herself to the sober
Teutonic life on which she was entering ; but when two years after-
wards she went to pay Elvira and her husband a first visit, she found
to her surprise and satisfaction that the bright young girl had settled
down into being a most notable house Frali ; managing her household
and her baby with great skill and good sense.

This discovery removed the last of Christine's anxieties, and she
felt that she might look forward now in hope to a peaceful evening of
her life, which, in its earlier day, had been clouded and agitated by so
many storms and vicissitudes.

131

IN THE LOTUS-LAND.

Veiled Beauty of Cairo.

By Charles W. Wood, F.R.G.S., Author of " Letters from
Majorca," "The Bretons at Home," etc., etc.

/~\NE of our most puzzling
^-^ tasks when we first visit-
ed Egypt was to distinguish
between the different races or
tribes forming the population
of the country.

Yet the difficulty has to be
overcome if we wish to ap-
preciate and understand what
we see around us. Certain
dresses, certain colours, cer-
tain types of feature, these
have their various and dis-
tinct interpretation. Every
shade of a turban, the man-
ner of wearing the girdle, the
flowing Abba, or the white
striped cloak, the face-veiling
hurko^ or the dark-blue turhah falling behind : each and all have their
separate meaning and signification.

The distinctions are not learned in a day ; but once mastered, your
interest in people and country is immeasurably heightened ; you feel
more in touch with them, can enter into their idiosyncrasies, steer
clear of their prejudicies : those feelings, beliefs and superstitions that
in this Lotus-Land, this Mohammedan country, are as ingrained and
deeply-rooted in the people as the very life-blood which animates
them. And to shock their prejudices or to inadvertently throw
ridicule upon their favourite superstitions is to establish a mortal
enmity between you and them for which, in some dark night, some
lonely spot, they would be avenged if opportunity arose ; even though
you had eaten salt with them.

But from a less serious point of view it is as interesting as it is
necessary to know something of the various tribes forming the sum-
total of the population of the Lotus-Land.

At a first glance they seem more numerous than they really are ;
more difficult to distinguish. You feel that for all these distinctions
and castes a dictionary is necessary ; but they are easily classified,
and out of apparent chaos and confusion, order and simphcity soon
appear.

132 In the Lotus-Land.

The population may be divided into two distinct classes — those
claiming descent from the ancient Eg)^tians, and those composed of
the mixed tribes and races who from time to time have settled in the
country and become a recognized part of it; a familiar type, though
not a native element.

It has already been stated that the ancient Egyptians had nothing
in common with the negro races. They were a fine, well-made people,
with features very much resembling the white races of Western Africa
and Northern Asia. In spite of intermarriage the t)^e has very
little changed. What they were four thousand years ago, they are
to-day : and a modern Eg}^tian gazing upon the statues of antiquity,
is gazing more or less upon his own likeness.

There is much that is pleasing in the reflexion. The ancient
Egyptian was tall, thin and spare, active and energetic ; with broad,
square shoulders, a nervous physique, and muscles well-developed. The
extremities were well-formed, proof of a higher type of race with the
ancients as with the moderns ; the hands were long and nervous, the
feet thin and narrow-heeled, though rather 'wide-spread at the toes
from the habit of wearing sandals. The head was often large in
proportion to the body, but the expression of the face was gentle
almost to sadness. The forehead was square and somewhat low ; the
nose short and round, not finely chiselled ; the eyes were large and
intelligent ; the lips thick, but well-formed and kept closed, generally
a sign of power, endurance and amiability. The smile was melan-
choly ; the general expression subdued, as if they felt that the mystery
of life was a problem they could not solve, ending in that solitary-
and inevitable journey into the unknown land : the destiny to which
all are drifting, and which is more or less constantly present to a
thoughtful mind, colouring every motive and influencing ever}-- action.

Such were the ancient Egyptians, and such, to a great extent, are
the Egyptians of to-day.

Of these ancients, the Fellaheen and the Copts are the true repre-
sentatives. With them it is a distinction less of race than of religion.
In the far-off times of one and the same creed, the Fellah turned
Mohammedan ; the Copt became Christian, The former has perhaps
retained a greater resemblance to the original race. Christianity is
more real, more earnest and elevating, and therefore more transform-
ing. They resemble each other still in their ways and habits of life ;
both have preserved something of the ancient language, the Fellahs,
from their more primitive occupations, more perfectly than the Copts.

In other ways, also, the Fellah bears a greater likeness to the
ancient Egyptian ; in the t}-pe of his mind, the morals influencing
his life, a certain stiffness of attitude combined with a certain grace.
The inhabitants of the plains of Memphis are almost identical with
the sculptured figures found at Gizeh ; excepting the tribes in the
immediate neighbourhood of the Pyramids, who have become dis-
tinctly Arabian. The inhabitants of Thebes have not altered. Some

In the Lotus- Land.

T33

of the watermen of Cairo, exactly resemble certain statues of the
Fourth Dynasty, to be seen in the Boulak Museum, proving how
little they have changed in spite of the lapse of ages and a certain
admixture of races.

A Copt.

In the foreign races who have from time to time migrated from
neighbouring countries and gradually assumed a native element, we
first of all recognize in Lower Egypt the Semitic race, that mixture of

134 ^^^ ^^^^ Lotus-Land.

Hebrews, Syrians, and Arabians, supposed to have sprung from
Shem, the son of Noah, who first invaded Egypt in the Third Dynasty,
and at the period of the Arabian conquest added largely to their
numbers.

Secondly, we have the Mongolian element, which included the
Hyksos or shepherd kings, and from which many of the Beduins in
the neighbourhood of Alexandria are descended.

Thirdly, the Turkish element comes in, also of Asiatic origin.

Fourthly, arise the Levantine elements, the most mixed of all, and
the most difficult to classify and distinguish.

In Upper Egypt the original race was much altered by the
blending of two different elements : the Ethiopian and the Negro.

The Ethiopians were not th^ true negro race, though very dark in
colour. They answer almost exactly to the types of the conquered
people as represented on the old Egyptian monuments. Of this race
the purest examples are found in Nubia and Abyssinia, and in the
deserts to the east of the valley of the Nile.

The negro races who intermixed with the population are, for the
most part, found in the Upper Valley of the Nile. Despised by the
pure Egyptian, they were not allowed to penetrate into the lower,
more civilized and more populous portions of the land. It is even
possible that when the ancient Egyptians first migrated into the
country they found a negro race already established on the banks of
the Nile, whom they routed, driving them to take refuge in the very
highest and hitherto uninhabited parts of the river. This, however,
will probably for ever remain a matter of conjecture. No actual trace
of such a state of things has been discovered.

Out of all these changes, migrations, invasions, ten different tribes
or elements finally resolved themselves, and to-day compose the
population of the Lotus-Land. These are : The Fellahs or Fella-
heen ; the Copts ; the Beduins ; the Arabian inhabitants of the towns ;
the Berbers or Nubians ; the Negroes, the Turks, the Levantines,
the Armenians and Jews, and the Europeans.

Of the true type of the Arabians who conquered Eg}^t in 640,
nothing remains. For more than two hundred years they have
become merged in the various tribes or people present in the
country. But, though they have disappeared, they have left lasting
traces behind them, establishing, apparently for ever, their religion,
their manners and customs ; accomplishing what other nations had
attempted and failed in. The Persian, the Macedonian, the Roman,
the Byzantine, had all in turn endeavoured to establish permanent
sway in Egypt, and had not succeeded. This was resented for the
conquering, the energetic Arabs, who, with their strong individuality
and their religious fanaticism, were destined to hold a strange influence
in the country when they themselves had passed awa)^ And this
seems to us the great key to success, its great secret — to be in earnest.

The Fellahs form the greater portion of the population. The word

In the Lotus- Land. 135

signifies " peasant," or " tiller of the soil ; " and this is what they
actually are, at any rate in Middle and Lower Egypt.

In Cairo and Alexandria they call themselves " Oulad el-Beled,"
{Children of the town). These differ somewhat in type from the
Fellah or peasant, and consider themselves far in advance of him.
They are a little fairer and more refined in appearance than those who
pass their lives in the country.

The Fellaheen are generally about middle height, strongly, even
massively made, with prominent wrists and ankles. The women are
lively-looking and agreeable, possessing a good deal of vivacity and
native wit. But they soon lose their beauty and grow old. Both
men and women have well-formed heads, with large, projecting
foreheads suggestive of capacity and intellect. Many of them look as
bright and intelligent as any race of men in the world, an impression
strengthened by the extreme brilliancy of their eyes. These eyes are
generally black or dark brown, deep set, both soft and sparkling ; the
hair and beard are also black and curly, but not in the least
approaching the coarse type of the negro ; the nose is straight and
well-marked, the mouth well-formed, the teeth white, regular, and
much shown in laughter. In the north their skin is simply brown,
becoming darker as one proceeds southward, and almost black in
Nubia.

The Fellaheen are the strength and backbone of the country, and
form three-fourths of the population.

The inhabitants of the towns — Oulad el-Beled — are a more mixed
race ; they have intermarried with other tribes, with the usual result.

The Fellahs of the country marry only amongst themselves, and
have retained their early type. They are more dependable in their
character, more noble and generous ; but, as we have said, somewhat
coarser in appearance. They are hard-working and industrious,
amiable and contented when young ; but, like the women, they soon
grow old ; they are oppressed and heavily taxed, live in mud huts and
are badly fed, and long before their time they are aged and bent
and disheartened. No longer capable of work, they have nothing to
fall back upon, nothing to live for.

It is impossible for the greater part of them in their youth to econo-
mize anything for old age ; yet they are frugal and sober. In a large
number of them, three small rolls of maize, about half the size of one's
hand, constitute the chief food of the day. Those who are some-
what better off add to this humble fare a few vegetables, a little milk,
chicor}', onions and dates. But they all have a hot supper, consisting
of a sauce made of onions and butter or onions and linseed oil, very
highly seasoned with salt and herbs. They have one common dish,
into which each member dips pieces of bread. We have seen exactly
the same process going on in the poorest huts of Norway.

Meat is seldom seen or touched, excepting in the month of
Ramadan, their great fast, when throughout the whole month nothing

136

In the Lotus-Land.

is eaten from sunrise to sunset, though the whole night, if they please,
may be devoted to feasting. Meat then becomes universal, and even
the beggars come in for their portion.

They are unlearned and superstitious ; Mohammedans, and firm
believers in their religion ; though, if you ask them its doctrines, they
know nothing, excepting that at stated hours they must offer up their
prayers. All other creeds are doomed to perdition, a belief which
causes them to accept their poverty with a cheerful spirit — it will be
made up to them in the next world they tell you.

The Fellah bows down to the superior knowledge of the European,
and estimates his wisdom according to the grandeur of his dress.

Their own dress, indeed, is very simple. It usually consists of a

Mariette's House.

pair of loose drawers and a long shirt of blue cotton or linen called an
eerie, or a zaaboot when it is of brown woollen stuff ; a white or brown
felt cap with a tarboosh over it, and upon this a turban of white, redy
or yellow cotton or muslin. That the head is so well protected is
both necessary and an advantage, for the Fellah generally shaves his
head, and without his turban would be an unsightly object never
intended by Nature. If they wear shoes they are pointed red or broad
yellow morocco. Very often when at work in summer they wear
nothing but their cap ; in winter, if they can afford it, they keep
themselves warm with a brown and white striped cloak. They are a
chilly race, and shiver and wrap their cloaks around them in weather
that we should consider warm and balmy.

The women dress very much as the men, but in addition they have

In the Loius-Land. 137

the burko, or face veil of black crape, and a dark blue muslin or linen
veil thrown over the head and falling behind. They nearly all wear
brass ornaments, of which they are as fond as the savage tribes ;
they blacken the edge of their eyelids with kohl, which adds
immensely to the expression of their dark eyes, though the custom
is not to be recommended ; and, with less effect, they stain their
finger-nails and the palms of their hands with henna. More often
than not they also ornament themselves with tattoo marks.

In the towns they dress with a little more attention to detail.
The cotton or linen shirt is often replaced by one of silk ; they wear
a short sleeveless vest of striped silk over it, with excellent effect, and
a long vest of striped silk over that reaching to the ankles ; a silken
girdle is tied round the waist ; the whole is covered by a long cloth
coat or cloak, the latter the flowing and more graceful abbayeh. The
small, close-fitting cotton cap is covered with the tarboosh, decorated
with a tassel of blue or black silk, and round this they wind a
cashmere shawl, or a long breadth of muslin, which forms the turban.
They have an endless variety of turbans and head-dresses, which are
worn according to their rank. A large proportion of the people
cannot wear silk clothes, and fall back upon muslin or cotton.

The women in the towns wear such a quantity of clothing that all
grace of form is lost. Perhaps this is of less consequence, as their
faces are disguised by the hideous burko, which conceals everything
•excepting the eyes, and you cannot tell whether a particular woman is
old or young, plain or beautiful. They wear a shawl round the waist
for a girdle, and on going out throw over all a large loose silk gown,
which again is covered by a large black or white silk cloak, reaching
down to the feet. By this time they look sufficiently packed and
bundled up for a Siberian winter.

In the country the women gather round the points of their dark
blue veils and hold them in their teeth, by which means they have a
•double protection for the face. The young women are beautifully
formed ; their faces are expressive, and their brilUant eyes are shaded
by long thick lashes ; but they spoil themselves very much by staining
the lips and tattooing the chin and body. They walk with singular
grace and freedom, and to see them carrying a pitcher or some other
burden upon the proud, well-set head, is a vision to delight an artist.

In the country the Fellahs chiefly live in mud huts, and you may see
them in groups and villages on the banks of the Nile.

They seldom wander beyond their small territories, living for their
work, cultivating their fields with an energy and industry worthy of
high praise. Yet it too often leads to nothing but an old age of
poverty and misery. They are heavily taxed and oppressed, as
already stated. If they have saved anything, the chances are that it
will be taken from them by those in higher authority ; and thus the
contentment and amiability of youth, the bright and happy nature
born with them, yields at last to moroseness and ill-humour.

VOL, LIV. K

138 In the Lotus-Land.

Their old age is as clouded as their youth was sunn3^ Even the
certainty of passing to the realms of the blessed is not a sufficient
prospect to enable them to fight against the evil. The failing senses
of old age remember nothing of the vividness of youth and manhood,
and the powers of anticipation too often go with it.

" There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay."

We all know the lines. It is exactly so with the poor Fellaheen,
though they cannot express themselves poetically, and are certainly
not philosophers. Their language and ideas are limited, but instinct
reasons for them. And from their ancestors, the early Egyptians,
they have inherited a sense of justice that has been steadily handed
down to them from generation to generation through all the ages, and
they keenly feel the measure of wrong too often dealt out to them.
The changes of morals and religion, the fanaticism and superstition of
Islam, have not been able to stamp out those fundamental principles,
which were as solidly built up, and are as enduring, as the work of
their hands — their pyramids and temples.

They are very poor at all times, these Fellaheen, but their wants
are few. They have no possessions, are even without the camel, that
treasure of the East. The Fellah considers himself fortunate if he
owns a donkey, the docile animal he so much resembles in his own
patient disposition. He scarcely ever wanders from the banks of the
Nile, and you will hardly meet with him elsewhere. It has been
w^ell said that the foot of the Fellah was made to leave its impression
on the alluvial soil cast up by the river ; whilst the foot of the Beduin
w^as made to tread the impressionless sand of the desert.

And here you have a comparison expressing the exact difference
between the two characters.

The Beduins — those wandering Arabs — are found wherever sand
is found in Egypt. They are for ever on the wing, scouring the
desert, fleeing from sand-storms, out-speeding the wind ; pitching
their tent at sundown, raising it at sunrise ; their home everywhere
and anywhere : the vastness that surrounds them, the eternal silence,
the boundless horizon, not without their effect in a certain grandeur
and breadth of mind which often leads them into unrecorded actions
of generosity and devotion. Human nature unspoiled by the constant
friction of mind with mind which leads to selfishness and sin, will
ever retain some of the noble traits first implanted by the Divine
Author of all. The Beduin is found everywhere ; in the pathless
desert, on the borders of the Red Sea, surrounding Alexandria ; ever
the same type ; he who inhabits without the walls of Cairo differing in
no w^ay from him whose tent is pitched in the remotest confines of
the Sahara. The desert is his home, the camel his sustenance, and
the horse, if he possesses one, his friend, to whom he is ^passionately
attached, and for whom he would almost risk his life.

K 2

140 In the Lotus-Land.

The poor Fellah, on the other hand, knows nothing of the life
of adventure, the delights of wandering, the allurements of constant
change, the charm of perpetual movement.

He plods through life more like a machine, which performs the
same circle of duty with each returning season, until the wheel is
broken at the cistern, and the oppressed spirit is at rest.

The mud hut in which he passes his life is as primitive as every-
thing else about him. If you look down upon it as you pass, you
almost take it for a ruin long since abandoned ; or entering, you
shudder as you realize under what privations and possibilities human
nature can exist. The walls are made of mud and straw, or of rough
bricks of Nile mud, without shape or form ; the roof is thatched with
straw and rags, anything they can find that will suit the purpose.
The interior is almost dark, for daylight can only enter through the
one opening ; windows are unknown ; they have not arrived at that
point of architectural superiority ; they could not be glazed, and
would only let in the cold of winter, to which the Egyptians are so
susceptible. The one room is almost empty ; you will find nothing
but a few baskets made of matting, a few mats of the same material ;
a sheep-skin, a kettle, and a few wooden plates and platters.

Surrounding the opening is a circular space surrounded by mud
walls, forming a sort of primitive courtyard. Here they live during
the summer, with the animals, retiring into the interior to sleep, and
not always even doing that.

In the centre of the yard a square pillar is placed, about five feet
high, with hollows in which to deposit their small treasures. A second
column with a small platform is used by the lord and master of the
domicile as a sleeping apartment in hot weather. From this perch he
can look down upon his surroundings monarch of all he surveys ; but
the " pride of possession " will scarcely be his, poor mortal, and few
would envy him his privilege.

Yet it must always be remembered that their hardships are not what
they would be in a different climate. How true it is — and with all
reverenice be it said — that God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.
Under the clear, rainless skies of Egypt, the wonderful atmosphere
itself is almost sufficient to sustain life : and probably the children of
Israel were never in more perfect health than during that forty years'
wandering in the Wilderness, when they had nothing but manna to
eat, and of that only sufficient for the daily need.

The Copts come next to the Fellaheen, if not before them in point
of antiquity. They are considered the more direct descendants of
the ancient Egyptians, but through intermarriage have undergone
greater changes.

The town-bred Copt can scarcely be in any way identified with the
Fellah living on the banks of the Nile ; yet both originally came from
the same source. There is some doubt as to the derivation of the
name, which may have been taken from Coptos, in Upper Egypt, the

In the Loins-Land,

141

chief town of the Christians until the reign of Mohammedanism, or
may be simply an Arabic corruption of the Greek word signifying
Egyptian.

The Copts were the only people who remained Christians when
Islamism became the religion of the country. They have, however,
lost all traces of the ancient race. Mixing and intermarrying with
the various tribes and people who have settled in Egypt, they have lost
their first identity. Their very number is uncertain, and has been

Beduin at Morning Prayer.

stated as anything between one hundred and fifty thousand and half
a million. Probably the difference between these two figures would
arrive very nearly at the truth.

Even their language, one of the most ancient in the world, they
have not retained, though it has not quite died out ; and to the
Coptic tongue is due the discovery of the key to the hierogl5^hic
inscriptions, with the world of information it has opened up to us.

The Copts dwell much in towns, and are not at all a wandering
race. They are found very much in Upper Egypt, and especially in

142 In the Lohis-Land.

the Fayoum, but in the Delta they are seldom seen. They are
numerous in the ancient towns of the north, such as Coptos, Luxor,
Denderah, Siut, and Akhmim ; and in Cairo they number about ten
thousand.

Their occupations are sedentary, and generally inclined to the
mechanical or artistic. They are watchmakers and workers in gold,
making much of the jewellery of the country. Most of the imitation
antiquities are also theirs — not a very honest way, perhaps, of earning a
living. They are clever embroiderers and weavers. Many of them are
well-educated, and are largely employed as clerks and book-keepers.

Their appearance is often pleasing ; they are usually a little below
the middle height, as were the ancient Egyptians, and are less strongly
made than the Fellaheen, or the ordinary Musulman ; have small
hands and feet, skulls somewhat high and narrow, and fairer skins.
They have inherited the large, wide-opened, almond-shaped eye of
their early ancestors, and this forms their chief beauty.

The Coptic camel-drivers of Upper Eg)^t resemble the Fellaheen
far more than those living in Cairo, having intermarried less with foreign
races. They are easily distinguished from the Arabs by their dark
turbans, and dark coloured clothes. The turbans are usually blue or
black, though occasionally grey or lightish brown. These dark colours
were made compulsory in the days of their persecution ; they are now
at liberty to dress as they please, but from habit and a certain
excusable pride, they keep to their traditions.

Their women veil their faces even more carefully than the ]\Ioham-
medans ; not only in public but in their own homes, and in presence
of their nearest relatives.

The married women of the upper classes wear a black veil ; the
girls and women of the lower classes a white veil, like the Tvloham-
medan women. They blacken their eyelids with kohl, and the women
of humble rank tattoo their faces and hands, invariably introducing
the sign of the Cross in some part of the supposed adornment.

Although these Copts are so-called Christians, it must not be
supposed that their churches and ritual are in the least like our
own. They possess forms and ceremonies we could neither under-
stand nor sympathize with ; and we feel almost as little at home in a
Coptic church as in a Mohammedan.

The head of the church is the Patriarch elected from the monks in
one of the five great Coptic monasteries in Egypt, the choice generally
falling upon a monk of the Convent of St. Anthony, in the eastern
desert — a convent founded by a hermit who was supposed to have
been the friend and companion of St. Paul. It is the largest and
oldest convent in Egypt, and its gardens are watered by a spring in
which Miriam, the sister of Moses, is said to have bathed, when the
children of Israel began their forty years' wandering in the Wilderness.

But, though the Copts have monks and monasteries, few of them
are Roman Catholic. The Liturgy of the Church is chiefly based

In the Lotus- Land.

143

upon St. Gregory and St. Basil ; the priests administer the Holy.
Communion barefooted, a practice descended to them from past ages,
and supposed to be commemorative of Moses at the Burning Bush,

Gathering Dates,

who was commanded by God to take his shoes from off his feet, " for
the ground whereon he stood was holy ground."

Their services are long and tedious. The Scriptures alone are
read in the old Coptic language ; everything else takes place in

144 ^''^ i^^^ Lotus-Land.

Arabic. In their doctrine they recognize only the divine nature
in our Saviour. To all other Christian denominations they are
bitterly opposed, carrying their bigotry and hatred to an extreme
point. This is partly due to their Egyptian character, the most con-
stant and tenacious in the world. For this reason they endured all
the terrible persecutions of the sixth century, and all the oppression
and opprobrium of succeeding ages.

This has had the usual effect upon their moral tone ; for tyranny
and injustice will in time destroy the finest nature, as continual dropping
wears away a stone. Through long ages they have become silent and
morose, greedy of gain, without noble aspirations or generous im-
pulses. If they are rich they are insolent and overbearing, if poor
and dependent they cringe and fawn upon you to obtain a recompense.
All the noble traits of the early Christians have entirely disappeared ;
they have lost much of their old faith, and possess very little conscience.
Their one object is to acquire wealth, and in their pleasures and
amusements they are coarse and sensual. For all this we may not
sit in judgment upon them ; their degeneracy is simply the result of
cause and effect. Long treated as slaves, they have inherited the
vices of slavery ; truth and honour, uprightness, moral responsibility,
these, of necessity, have died out.

At the same time it must be remembered that they brought many
of these persecutions upon themselves in the first instance. The new
masters, the Arabians, with their new religion, were intolerable to them ;
instead of submitting to the inevitable, they opposed the invaders,
-secretly and persistently conspired against them, and so ruined their
own cause. They knew nothing of the virtue and power of Christian
Patience.

There are, of course, many exceptions, especially amongst the
educated and enlightened and the more wealthy ; but the fact remains-
that the Copts, once wrongly despised and oppressed for their
religion and high tone of thought and life, have fallen from their high
estate.

In the social changes passing over the world, they may eventually
recover their ancient privileges of heart and mind ; where a grain of
good seed remains, it may at any moment take root and spread and
bear grain a hundredfold. Many of them have been converted of late
to Protestantism by the American missionaries ; the long-ebbing tide
may begin to flow once more ; the day may yet come when they will
return to their early traditions. In spite of all they have been a great
force and influence in the country ; have left many traces and records
behind them. Theirs is the language found on many of the old Egyptian
walls. They were at one time rich in MSS. inscribed on cotton-paper
and papyrus ; and if a large number of them have not come down to
us, it is due to the barbarism of the Musulmans, who in their
fanaticism loved to destroy everything that was opposed to their own
creed.

I

In the Lotiis-Land. 145

Prominent in interest, but rarely seen beyond his native desert, in
his primitive integrity, his simple dignity, is the Beduin.

These ancient tribes, living in the desert in regions remote from
civilization, from close towns and crowded habitations ; pitching their
tents wherever there may be a spring of water or green oasis, are
surrounded by a halo of romance. We think of them as we think of
no other people upon earth. In their character there is much to-
admire ; and their free, wandering life arouses all our love of adven-
ture. Who has not longed for a time to throw off the trammels of
ordinary life and revel in the vast silence of the wilderness — its
apparently boundless limits, its wonderful skies ? Those who have
had the smallest experience of the desert know that it gives birth to
thoughts and emotions hitherto undreamed of, as new as they are
overpowering and delightful.

The Beduins are a race apart, and, to some extent, a law unto
themselves. They may be divided into two great groups or familie.Sy
which again are subdivided into lesser tribes.

First, there are the Arabic-speaking tribes, who originally came from
Arabia and Syria, and now inhabit the deserts of Central and Northern
Eg)T)t, and the regions of Southern Nubia, giving up their lives to
quiet and harmless pursuits, cultivating their fields and tending their
flocks.

Secondly, there are the Bega, found in Upper Egypt and Nubia, all
the territory lying between the Nile and the Red Sea. These are
Ethiopians, and are supposed to be descendants of the Blemmyes, who
until the fourth century of the Christian era occupied all the Nubian
portion of the Nile valley. They are divided into three separate
tribes or races : the Hadendoa, the Bisharin, and the Ababdeh.

The last are the most evident in Egypt. They are wandering and
restless ; have scattered and spread in the valleys, have never pros-
pered or attempted to do so, but lead lives of miserable poverty,
grasping in a small way all they can lay hands upon ; depending
upon their few goats and camels to keep them from absolute
starvation.

These Ababdeh once possessed a language of their own, but in
their scattering and wandering propensities they have for the most
part lost it, and they now speak Arabic. Their dress is simple : a
long white garment with a girdle round the loins, over which a tight
woollen mantle is thrown in winter. The shepherds in the valleys
wear nothing but a leathern apron, with a blanket thrown over the
shoulders.

These Beduins are a fine race of men, with dark bronze complexions
and well-formed features. The expression of the best of them is
proud and fearless, with well-opened flashing eyes. The free, wander-
ing life they lead gives them an independence of character and spirit,
which their poverty has in no way destroyed. Their wants are indeed
few, and they have learned to expect little. The very modesty of

146

In the Lotus-Land.

their desires has probably encouraged them in their want of thrift.
Where necessities are few the daily bread seems easily supplied, and
ceases to be a matter for anxiety.

The free life of the desert has developed all their physical endow-
ments. They are magnificently formed and proportioned ; not too
large, in accordance with their scanty nourishment, but slender and
graceful and lithe of limb, swift runners, and not easily tired ;
have small, thin features, a clear complexion, and an eye full of
intelligence. They wear a dagger in a sheath fastened above the
elbow of the left arm, but their nature is gentle and not aggressive ;
they never use it excepting in self-defence.

The number of the Abeb-
deh Beduins is about thirty
thousand.

In crossing the deserts you
come much into contact with
them, but you have nothing
to fear from them. Govern-
ment has given them the con-
trol of the route through the
Nubian desert, so that they
feel themselves responsible
for what happens. The head
of the tribe, the chief sheykh,
inherits the dignity, and ap-
points sub-sheykhs in every
village, who are responsible
for law and order. They are
judges and arbitrators, and
their decision is final and
binding.

The Beduins thoroughly
despise the quieter and more
industrious and oppressed
Fellahs, who pass their lives
in pastoral and agricultural
pursuits on the banks of the
Nile, sowing their seed and reaping their harvests, and, as far as they
are able to do so, laying up in store for the time to come. All this
the Beduins despise with a sovereign contempt. Occasionally one of
them will take the daughter of a Fellah to ^sife, but the daughter
of a Beduin is never allowed to mate with a Fellah. Yet the Fellaheen
are well-conducted and well-principled, and the chastity of their women
is proverbial.

The Beduins are famous for their war-dances, and when it is possible
it is well to see one of their remarkable representations.
. The Ababdeh tribe live in small huts and hovels, which consist

Woman of Cairo.

In the Loiiis-Land.

147

simply of stakes covered with straw mats. Occasionally they live in
caves where sun and light never penetrate, though a snake will some.

A Water Seller.

times'glide in with murderous intentions. They possess the faculty of
tracking to a marvellous extent, and have pursued and hunted down

148 In the Lotus-Land.

many a criminal trying to escape from public justice. Many of them
live almost wholly on goats' milk, or, buying a little sorghum grain,
they eat this raw, or baked into a species of thin, unleavened cake,
hard and tasteless. They scarcely ever touch meat, but occasionally
capture game, of which they are very fond. Those living near the
sea subsist very much on the shell-fish they pick up, varied now
and then with turtles' eggs, and the eggs of the sea-swallow,
which are found in large quantities on the sandy islands of the
Red Sea.

But in this marvellous climate, as we have already said, it is almost
possible to live upon nothing. The smallest amount of food will
satisfy the wants of nature, and not only keep body and soul together,
but keep the body in health.

If any part of the physical organization suffers it is the intellect ;
the brain needs nourishment more than the body. But the cravings
of hunger, such as the ill-fed inhabitants of colder climates experience,
are unknown to the Beduins. It is a merciful arrangement where
poverty is great, and food is scanty and often very difficult to procure.
No one can realize without experience the marvellous sustaining
properties of the desert air, or the healthiness of the roaming desert
life ; none can realize its charms. Never until you have once gone
into the desert can you even faintly conceive the delight of scouring
these endless, pathless wastes, where undulation after undulation
meets the eye, hills and valleys seem to multiply themselves, and
vast plains open up a boundless horizon. You feel that this is
indeed a new life and a new world, as wonderful and magical as
anything to be found in the Arabian Nights or the most marvellous
tales of adventure ever conceived by the most fertile imagination.

The Beduins of the North are those who have most retained the
traits of the ancient people, and best represent one's ideas of the
impulsive and wandering Arab, scouring the desert upon his steed
and living a life of wild freedom and uncertainty.

These have retained all the energy, all the fiery blood and fierceness
of character of their forefathers, who fought under the banner of
Mohammed, and to whom most of his victories were due. What
they were then, they are now. If a new prophet were to arise, and
all the wars and vicissitudes of the sixth century were repeated, these
Arabs of the North would rally under the new banner, and with the
cry " To death ! To Paradise ! " would carry all before them or
perish in, the attempt. Their tenacity to old traditions is without
parallel, but living in deserts, not mixing with their fellow-men, not
intermarrying with other tribes, the condition of their life never alters ;
the eternal sameness of the desert hills and plains, of the sky that
overshadows them, serves them as a model of constancy, which finds
its reflection in their own hearts and minds.

These men are only found if you penetrate into the desert and seek
them out. If occasionally they have occasion to visit the towns, they

In the Lotus- Land.

149

get through their business as quickly as possible, and return to their
native haunts.

The restraint of a city is odious to them. You may now and then
see one in the streets of Alexandria or the bazaars of Cairo, and you
will know him by the grace and freedom of his gestures, by his
upright form and fearless carriage, by his keen, straightforward eye,
and the clear bronze of his complexion ; a monarch amongst men,

A Road Waterer.

with some of the bold and fearless traits of the lion about him, who
is also a monarch in his own dominions.

But the Beduin is quiet, reasonable, never seeking to disturb the
peace of the community, and above all, never taking a mean advantage
or tiying to get the better of his neighbour. Those Beduins at the
foot of the Pyramids, who perhaps once belonged to the nobler race,
are no longer worthy of their traditions. They have mixed and inter-
married with others ; have ceased to be honest and fearless ; a love

150 In the Lotus-Laud.

of gain is their leading characteristic; backsheesh is the keynote of
their life ; they are Beduin in nothing but the name.

The Arabs dwelling in the towns are a very mixed race, and they
are found in all classes of the community ; amongst the shopkeepers,
the officials, the servants, and the donkey boys. They have grown
indolent, frightfully greedy of gain, ravenous for backsheesh, not
satisfied unless they have pillaged you to the utmost of their power ;
telling you the most palpable and barefaced untruths to gain their
ends, scarcely caring to conceal their cunning and duplicity. Too
often your dragoman is in league with them, and then you are at their
mercy.

Their religion has partly helped to develop this temperament, and
encourages them in defrauding the stranger ; this quiets their
conscience, and makes them feel themselves partly in the right, so
that they assume a straightforward air of candour which may easily
be mistaken for honesty and uprightness. Very little of the true
and original Arab remains. You will find the inhabitants of the
towns of every complexion from white to black, and of every cast of
feature from the large, almond-shaped eye of the Egyptian to the well-
defined profile of the Beduin ; here you encounter the stout, gross
figure of the Turk, side by side with the slender proportions of the
Fellah and the Copt.

These dwellers in the towns are slow and deliberate in all their
actions, taking an abundance of time over their work, never hurrying
themselves, thinking they can do to-morrow what has been left
undone to-day. They are thorough in nothing. Fatalism is a part
of their creed, and influences them almost as it influences the Turk ;
yet not quite as strongly, for he, upon this same principle of fatalism,
allows everything about him to go to ruin.

There is a dreaminess about them that is thoroughly Oriental. I
have talked to one who seemed under the influence of some powerful
narcotic, about to fall into unconsciousness ; yet a remark, a turn in
the conversation, has suddenly roused him into full life and energy
and activity, the dreamy eyes have flashed with intelligence, he has
seemed in full possession of very acute senses, to fall back a few
moments after into his dreamy condition. There is often a
gentleness, almost a womanliness about them, very appealing to one's
sympathies, making you feel as if you were talking to grown-up
children, who needed care and protection,

Besides these people there are the Jews, the Turks, the Levantines,
and the Europeans to complete the population of the Lotus-Land.

The Jews take precedence of the Turks in point of religion, the
Turks come first in political importance ; not that they now possess
much real power. They have never been great in numbers, and the
present Turkish population of Egypt is said scarcely to exceed ten
thousand. It is more or less a floating population, wandering and
transitory. They keep themselves very much apart, and despise the

In the Lotus-Land.

151

rest of the various tribes or people of Egypt. Their power virtuall}^
came to an end when they were conquered by the Mamelukes, and
they are never likely to regain any real influence. They are a
prosperous section of the population, and are chiefly occupied in
mercantile pursuits. In past days, when the political power was in
their hands, they terribly mismanaged the country, and reduced it to
a condition from which it has scarcely recovered. They are a hand-
some and dignified race.

A Nubian \Yoman.

The Jews for the most part live in Cairo, in a dirty and miserable
quarter. They are slovenly in their habits, but many are rich and
prosperous. Though despised, they are not persecuted. Many of
them are of very different type from the Jews in Europe ; frequently
have red hair, are fair, -with blue eyes and light complexions. The
colour of their turbans is the same as that worn by the Copts. The
women veil themselves, and dress exactly as the Coptic women, which
closely resembles the ordinary Mohammedan costume.

152 l7i the Loius-Land.

That the Jews are despised and set apart is chiefly due to their
miserable manner of Uving and their neglect of the laws of cleanliness
— an unpardonable sin to the followers of the False Prophet.

The Armenians are a superior and more prosperous race, and a more
popular. They are intelligent and well educated, and are excellent
linguists. Many of them are wealthy, and, in consequence of their
abilities, not a few are employed in Government offices.

The Levantines are a mixed race.

The . term is generally applied to all the Arabian Christians of
Syrian origin. It is also frequently applied to all those persons of
European origin who are born in the East. Many of them have
settled in Egypt for generations, and have intermarried with some of
the oldest Egyptian families. Those of more recent date consist of
Syrians, Armenians, and Greeks. Not a few of them are rich, and
are chiefly bankers or merchants. They are Christians, but in their
domestic life adopt many of the customs and habits of the Musul-
man. Like the Armenians they are excellent linguists, and are well
educated. Amongst themselves they have a language which is a
mixture of many dialects, but they profess to speak Arabic. They
have made themselves a prominent and important element in the
country.

Next, and finally, come the Europeans, who are very numerous, and
are composed of all nations. They are scattered over all the towns
of Egypt, but are chiefly found in Alexandria and Cairo.

A very large proportion of them are Greeks ; next in number are
the Italians ; the remainder are French, English, and German, with a
few Russians and Scandinavians.

The Greeks and the Maltese are the most unruly element in the
country, and are said to commit nearly all the crimes which fill the
prisons.' Egypt would gain if the Maltese element were altogether
absent. In their own small island they are kept in check by the
influence and wholesome fear of the English ; but in Egypt, where
they are outside control, they give way to their natural character, and
become insubordinate, cunning, and frequently criminal — breaking
the honest laws of the land and paying the penalty.

The Greeks are enterprising and pushing, have more intelligence
than the Egyptians, more daring ; and this from want of principle,
frequently leads them also into mischief. They are the rich people of
Alexandria ; monopolize a great part of the commerce, live in the
finest houses, drive the most showy equipages. These are the
commercial aristocracy of the place ; and, to a limited extent, are to
the modern city what the Greeks were to the ancient.

The classic days of Alexander, the Ptolemies, and Cleopatra are
over ; the picturesqueness, the glory, the greatness and grandeur, the
voluptuousness and the unlicensed revelry — ^all this has disappeared.
In place there reigns a commonplace element, in which is found
nothing of the beautiful and picturesque, but more of the wholesome,

In the LoUis-Land.

153

more of the law-observing ; a condition of things that possibly may last
to the end of time. The world is consolidating into forms, manners,
and ideas which are the outcome of progress and science. These will
govern the future world, not men's whims and fancies. The time is
fast disappearing when one country will rule as supreme mistress
above all other nations. The result of a battle is now settled by an
indemnity, not by a change of dynasty for the conquered.

A Beduin.

It is better so. Wars will probably last as long as the world itself ;
it has even been demonstrated that they are a positive good ; a necessity,
and not a necessary evil. If this be true we may well wish for the
day when this present dispensation shall give place to a millennium of
harmony, in which the lion shall lie down with the lamb, and Divine
mercy shall remove the curse that has lain so long upon the world.

No country has gone through greater changes and vicissitudes than
Egypt ') y^t, as long as the Nile overflows, so long will she seem to
retain her vitality. Like the Phoenix of her ancient people, the

VOL. LIV. L

154 ^^^ ^^^^ Lotus-Land.

centuries roll on and she rises from her ashes \Yith renewed vigour and

life and youth. We have seen how mixed is her population, of what

various elements it is composed, how puzzling all these tribes and sects

are to the unfamiliar visitor ; but ever}' different section fills its niche

more or less necessarily, more or less worthily ; the numerous elements

form a not inharmonious whole, upon which shine the clear skies of

our Lotus-Land by day, whilst night after night there comes down upon

a sleeping world the benediction of the stars — a peace and serenity only

broken by the voice of the muezzin ringing clear and distinct through

the darkness, sounding from the minarets like a voice from Paradise

calling the faithful to prayer.

******

And now our task of many months is ended. We have trespassed,
we fear, far too much upon the reader's patience, in lingering so long
amongst the antiquities of the Lotus-Land, and treading in the foot-
steps of the past. But it is impossible for the traveller in Egypt to
perfectly enjoy and realize what meets his vision at every moment of his
progress, without knowing something of the history of the countr}' — its
laws and customs, its ancient religion, its hierogl}^hics, its mystic s}Tn-
bols, its art and architecture, its various tribes and races ; how they
came into existence, how they flourished and passed away : times and
people and places which take us back to those remote and mysterious
ages, compared with which the days of Abraham seem but as yesterday.

For this reason we have ventured to give a very brief and imperfect
outline of this most ancient, most interesting land of tombs and
temples, of ruined cities, and antiquarian remains. We may now
return to our own personal experiences, and endeavour to place before
the reader, if he can still accord us a little indulgence and attention,
some of the scenes which so greatly interested ourselves, and remain
as vivid and unfading pictures in the memory. No one, indeed, can
visit this classic ground, teeming with traces and memorials of
remotest antiquity ; no one can breathe that rarefied air and gaze
upon those blue ethereal skies, or trace the windings of the matchless
Nile, without experiencing an emotion no other country will yield, a
delight as rare as it is profound. The Lotus-Land appeals alike to
the antiquarian, the historian, the philologist, the Biblical student,
and the philosopher. It has been singularly favoured. If to Beth-
lehem was given the honour of seeing the birth of the Saviour, to
• Egypt was given the honour of protecting Him from the wrath of
Herod. From the moment the command was given : " Arise and
take the young Child into Egypt," a new and separate interest fell
upon this wonderful country ; an interest never to be removed until
that day when the fields being ripe for harvest, the reapers put
in their sickle, and the light of Eternity shall dawn upon a new
heaven and a new earth, where death and evil, sorrow and pain, all
the mystery and sadness of this mortal life, shall not enter in ; for " the
former things are passed away."

155

WHEN THE CENTURY WAS YOUNG.

I.

T N the latter years of her life Miss Morris lived at the small seaport
-^ of Aberderry, and now and then took lodgers. She was com-
fortably off, and had small need of swelling her income by these
means, but she did so chiefly as an accommodation to the large circle
of friends, both in her own grade and a higher, by all of whom alike
she was looked up to and respected.

Her late father was the last representative of what had been a long
established family of substantial landowners, from whose hands their
lands had passed farm by farm away, leaving him only the owner of
one farm, which had once been the centre of a good estate. This
farm lay in near proximity to Powys Court, and Mr. Powys, of whom
mention will presently be made, had much partiality for this old
neighbour of his, who had seen better days, and whose lands, and
those of his forefathers, were nearly all incorporated in the Powys
estates. To Miss Morris herself this regard had been the more
warmly extended that she had been foster-sister to one of the young
ladies of the family. With that much-loved family she had suffered
and rejoiced, and although not, of course, on a social equality with
them, she had been held by them in high affection and esteem. She
had received such education as the remote district in which she lived
afforded, and this had been to some extent supplemented by her
companionship with Miss Lucie. The stamp of refined influences
was unmistakably on her, while of the larger education given by a
varied experience working on a good heart, she had, perhaps, more
than any one I ever knew.

When we were in quarantine from the measles, in her lodgings, last
year, she would often tell us stories of days when the country was
wilder and more lawless than it now is, and this that I give, as far as
I can remember it, in her own words, is one of them.

When I was a young girl, said Miss Morris, times were very
different from what they are now. The century and I were in our teens
together, and in remote country places like Glenarthney, where I lived
with my parents, little offences against the law were practised now and
again without much notice being taken ; or if the worst came to the
worst, it was not very difficult to find a hiding-place from justice.
I do not say a word against the laws as they are now. They are,
of course, very nice and proper, and where should we be without
them? But in those days they were very hard in some cases,
especially on the poor, and if the more humane among the gentry
were content sometimes, instead of prosecuting at the first offence,
to send warnings to the culprit : not direct, of course, but con-

L 2

156 When the Centwy was Young.

veyed through trustworthy agents, in some way or other : I think
it was very much to their credit. If they thought a Httle less of the
guilt it was because they considered the temptation more, and that
seems only like the mercy taught us in the Gospel. If, where the
offence was small and the punishment great, they gave people some-
thing more than one chance, it was, I think, the best justice in the
sight of God. Now, you must not suppose from this that Glenarthney
was full of bad people. It was just the other way. The poor rates
were low and there was little crime. Half the parish belonged, as I
have often told you, to Mr. Powys, and a better landlord, more active,
or more beloved, was never known.

But some bad people will always be found, and there were a very
wild lot in those days living in a small kind of hamlet or ravine that
ran up the side of one of the hills. It was, I think, waste land,
belonging to no one in particular — the Crown, perhaps — but there
were plantations near full of game, and higher up it opened right on
to a kind of table-land on the top of the mountain, where there was a
large sheep walk. All that part is hilly country, and desolate enough
to a stranger ; but cottages and small tenements are scattered up and
down it, half out of sight until you are close upon them ; and there
was a little cluster of dwellings, some scarcely better than huts, in this
ravine, and two families had made a kind of little colony there — the
Phillips and the Duntzes. There were farriers, and jockeys, and
different trades among them, but they were very handy to the sheep-
walks and game, and the saying was that although they were idle and
poor, they knew the taste of mutton-chops and hare-soup as well as
some of their betters did.

In fact, they really were incorrigible poachers, and smugglers as
well, and the Phillips, men and women, too, were a real bad lot in a
great many ways — dishonesty, and what not ; and Mr. Powys thought
very ill of them, and tried to get rid of them from the parish, only
they were cunning as well as bold. On the other hand, he always
said the Duntzes had good stuff in them. If they once gave their
word it was to be trusted ; they were brave and less cringing than
those others ; they were good to one another and to any one else who
would let them alone, and it seemed they had a great attachment to
that wild spot among the Welsh hills. Some said there was good
blood in them, however they came by it, but I know nothing of that ;
it was an old story before my time, and although Duntze is an
English, or rather foreign, name, they were Welsh in everything
besides.

Now, when I was quite a little child, two of these men, one from
each family, were taken up for sheep-stealing, and sentenced to death
for it, for so the law then was, and a very shocking one it was, too.
Mr. Powys took it to heart uncommonly, and worked hard to get
them off. They were both men in the prime of life, little younger
than himself, and he had had dealings with Will Duntze about

I

When the Century was Young, 157

breaking in some horses, and had taken rather a fancy to him. Then
he was ahvays very much against that law, and I have heard him say,
many is the time —

" When a man is half-starved on a cold winter's night, and more
than half sick at hearing his children cry for food, and a sheep strays
to his door, or a hare crosses him in the woods as if sent by God, and
he takes and kills it, if it is a crime at all, it is not a large one.
Which of us who sit on the bench to judge him, never having wanted
for a meal all our lives, can honestly say we would not have done it if
we found ourselves in his place ? "

Well, they had pleaded " Not Guilty " from the first ; whether they
were or not, I cannot tell, and there were extenuating circumstances in
their favour. Mr. Powys and others left no stone unturned to help
them, and so at last they got the sentence changed into transportation
for life, and that was hard enough for them, I think. They were sent
to Botany Bay, and every one supposed that they had heard the last
of them ; but when some fifteen or sixteen years had gone by, there
began to be some talk in the country that Will Duntze had escaped
from the settlement and was come home.

Fifteen years makes an alteration in every one, but of course the
older people remembered him well, and, although he kept very close
at first, one saw him, then another, and they said there was no doubt
about it, only he was dressed up as a woman and never was to be met
with except in the hills and lanes about Trawsnant, as the ravine
where they lived was called. It was a daring thing to venture back
to the very place where he was taken, but the Duntzes were daring
enough for anything, and this man had a wonderful love for the
cottage where he was born, and for all the place, indeed, for that
matter. At first he would come for a bit and go away again, but by
degrees, as he found people let him alone, he stayed on and on.

" Who is this you have got living with you ? " asked some one of the
women of old Mary Duntze, Will's mother, one day.

" A cousin of my husband's," said she, looking at them straight as
a hawk. " She is widow of an English farmer. They call her Mrs.
Martin, and she gives me many a good hand's turn in the house now
that my daughter is sick."

So it was Mrs. Martin she had to be, although no one believed it a
bit, and somehow every one's business is no one's business, and the
Duntzes had always been free-handed among their poor neighbours
and were not disliked. Anyway, no one laid information against him,
although the parish constable in reality knew about it as well as any
one. He asked my father to find out from Mr. Powys what he had
better do, and Mr. Powys said he did not believe one word of the
story, and to let the poor woman alone, as she seemed doing no
harm. But I think all three — I mean Mr. Powys, the constable, and
my father — took great pains not to meet Mrs. Martin so as to see her
face to face.

158 When the Century was Young.

By this time I was grown up, and it was wonderful the interest I
took about this Will Duntze, having heard the old story long ago and
thinking it so hard upon him. I was as afraid he would be taken as
if he were some relation of my own, and one night I awoke screaming,
and when they came to see what was the matter, I was crying out,
" Oh, the king has sent down a sheriff after poor Will Duntze, and he
is hiding in our barn." Several times I happened to meet Mrs.
Martin in the lanes and used to feel half-frightened when I saw her
coming, but I always said " Good-morning " as friendly as I could, and
she very stiff and gruff answered back.

One day I had been staying with my grandmother, at Trecelyn, and
was to go home about noon. My uncle was constable there. I did
not care for him much, for he was a hard man, very different from my
father ; but they were all good to my grandmother and told her every-
thing, and often asked her advice, for she was a very wise woman, and
they talked before me as before one of themselves.

That morning he told her of an expedition he and some others had
to go, which they were keeping secret. Some smuggled goods had
been brought up the country and they had a search warrant to go to
several places after them, and to some of the cottages in Trawsnant
among others.

" If I go," said my uncle, " I'll just have a look at her they call
Mrs. Martin. I am much mistaken if I shall not see an old acquaint-
ance there, whose right place is over the water. They are not half
sharp at Glenarthney."

It was a fine morning in April, and instead of going home by the
high road I went a shorter cut over the hills. The road was bad
enough in some parts, with a brook to ford, over which there was only
a little wooden bridge for foot passengers ; but I liked going this way,
for it was sheltered in winter and shady and pretty in summer. It
was lonely, however, by night, as there were few cottages and only one
farmhouse by the roadside ; but in the daytime the men were working
in the fields and there were plenty passing by.

The brook came straight down from the hamlet of Trawsnant, and
was the loneliest part of all. The hedges in the sunshine were
covered with primroses, and I took the pony I was riding (it was all
riding in those days except for the real gentry) close to them, and
gathered a bunch to take to my dear Miss Lucie, my foster sister, who
was ill on her sofa then, and for a long while after. All the time I
was thinking of Will Duntze, feeling grieved and frightened for his
danger, although I had not dared to say a word to my uncle. AVhat-
ever his crime had been, he had had severe punishment for it, and as
long as he was so much for his old home among the mountains, it
seemed hard upon him to be hunted down even there, like a wild
creature. The road now went along under the plantation by
Trawsnant, and just as I was coming to the brook who should be
there but Mrs. Martin.

When the Century was Young. 159

The Duntzes' cottage was high up in the ravine, but most likely she
was doing a day's work at some of the neighbour's houses lower down.
She was carrying two pitchers to fill at the brook. She was very tall
and straight, and dressed in the Welsh dress like the other people,
except that she had a handkerchief about her head and under her
chin, and an old bonnet perched upon the top of that, coming down
over her forehead. Her eyes were deep set and handsome, looking at
one very stern and keen from under her thick eyebrows and broad
forehead ; that is if she chose to look at all, but passing most people
she would keep her eyes down, and to be sure they were uncommonly
like old Mary Duntze's ! Large and rather handsome her other
features were.

I came upon her rather of a sudden, and almost without knowing
to myself something made me stop the pony.

" Good morning," said I, in Welsh, " will you be good enough to
dip this handkerchief in the water for me. I want to keep the flowers
fresh."

She took it very stiffly, without saying a word, and I had just one
minute to think while she rinsed it out.

" If what I am going to do is wrong in the sight of man," I thought
to myself, " I think the Almighty will forgive me."

" The flowers are for Miss Lucie Powys," I said, aloud ; " she likes
to have them, poor young lady, now when she is ill."

" I have heard tell of her," said Mrs. Martin shortly.

When I had thanked her and was winding the handkerchief round
the primroses, which, indeed, were not drooping at all, she took up
her pitcher and began to move off.

" I am coming from Trecelyn," I said, then, " and something I
heard whispered there makes me think some of the preventive men
and others mean to pay Trawsnant up there a visit to-night."

I can see now the tall figure holding a pitcher in each hand as she
turned slowly and seemed to look through my very soul while she
spoke.

" After what are they going there ? " she said, in a hard, stern voice,
like a justice on the bench.

" They say there are smuggled goods there, and — well — and other
things besides. Perhaps I am wrong to speak of it, if any there have
been doing what is bad," I said, wondering all the while how I dared
to be so bold.

" Not more bad, perhaps, than those who go there after them," said
Mrs. Martin, full of defiance for a minute, then quite quiet again.
" Well, if there is any truth in the story it will be seen to-night," and
scarcely answering my " Good-morning," she turned on her way,
taking care, however, to show she was not in any hurry.

iCo When the Century was Young,

II.

I DID not dare to tell any one what I had done, and although I could
not be sorry for it, I was uncomfortable enough for the next few days,
and very anxious to hear whether the preventive men had really come.
We soon knew all about it. They had gone to Trawsnant, as they
intended, and searched for the goods, but found nothing. There was
no trouble about it at all. The Trawsnant men were found quietly at
home, and by their being so willing to be searched, the constables and
all thought they must know well in reality that the goods were safe in
some other hiding-place. Nothing could be brought home to them
whatever. My uncle asked particularly to see Mrs. Martin, but she
had gone that morning, they said, to her other relations in North
Wales, so there was an end of that.

All through both harvests Mrs. Martin was absent, and I was
beginning to be afraid she had been fairly driven away, when one day
I was going a long walk by Trawsnant and passed her on the road.
There was a footpath on the plantation side higher than the road, and
generally much cleaner, where I was walking, and she was below, so
we only said " Good morning." She did not look straight at me, and,
indeed, I felt rather guilty myself, for it seemed as if we had a secret
between us, which some would not think quite creditable. I was
glad, however, that she must know the information I had given her
was true.

My mother had sent me a message to Capelly, a farm on the
roadside, about a mile beyond Trawsnant, and when I was coming
back I saw Mrs. Martin leaning over some bars going into the planta-
tion. I guessed at once she was waiting for me. She had a few
small branches in her hand of the mountain ash with beautiful red
berries, and she held them to me.

" Here," she said, " if you like to take these things home to the
young lady who is ill ; some folks think this sort handsome ; I know
nothing of such things myself."

I took them and thanked her kindly, saying, what was true, that
Miss Lucie would think them fine. She was half turned, but said
over her shoulder, looking at me steadily from under her thick
eyebrows :

''There are plenty of nuts in an old hedge about fifty yards off this
way " — pointing to the right ; " it is too far for the children of the
village to come, and likely enough they don't know of them ; but they
are easy to reach if you like to come and gather them some day."

I said, " I'll come there the first morning I've got time, and thank
you for telling me."

" There are blackberries there, too," was her only answer as she
walked off.

You may think me very foolish but indeed the tears were in my

When the Century was Young. i6i

eyes as I turned away, and I thought her face looked older and more
haggard than when last we met, and her eyes more hollow. I did not
forget to thank her for the nuts, you may be sure ; and after that I
felt somehow that we were friends ; not that the nuts, of course,
belonged to her in any way. It was an odd kind of friendship,
for we never spoke to each other except just a word or two in
passing, and if any one was with me she would scarcely even say
" Good day " ; but a kindly look came into her face when she
looked at me that quite softened it. I suppose there were not very
many she had ever been able to trust. She did several little things,
too, to show her good will. It was a bad winter for holly berries, for
instance, but she told me she could get some, if I wanted them, from
a long way off; and true enough on Christmas Eve a little boy brought
me splendid branches, so that our neighbours said they were quite
envious of me. A year went by and the only change in Trawsnant
was that one of the Phillips came home from somewhere out of work,
a real bad fellow, who had been in gaol more than once, and every
one was sorry to have him back in the place.

It was about the middle of November, and I was again staying
with my grandmother at Trecelyn, when one day I got a summons to
attend my dear Miss Lucie. She had been taken worse suddenly,
and they were very much afraid of her, although I may as well tell
you at once she was mercifully spared to us that time. The doctor
himself brought me the news. He had to return to visit a pressing
case at Trecelyn, and as he did not expect the crisis in Miss Lucie's
illness for twelve hours he would be back at Powys Court in time.
The groom from there was bringing a horse to meet me, but the
doctor had come on quicker to prepare me to get ready, and to give
me medicine for her, which she was to take at a certain time. He
was in such a hurry he could scarcely stop to give me the directions.
I was in great trouble.

" Oh, I will start at once," I said, " and meet the man on the road,
so as not to lose time."

"Yes, that's right. That is your best plan," he said.

I soon get some things together in a little basket with the medicine
and set off, and it was only when I was out of the town, and well
started on my usual road over the hills, it came of a sudden into my
head, suppose the groom should be coming by the other way ! I
stood still for a moment. Should I go back ? Then I thought, they
know I always come this way, and it will save so much time if I meet
him about half way, for he might not have started directly after the
doctor left the Court. I determined to go on ; it seemed, somehow,
as if I could not turn back, the high road being quite the other end
of the town, but I hoped earnestly at every bend of the road to see
the groom coming.

It was about five o'clock when I set out, and the evening was dark with
rain and w^ind, and although I had scarcely time, being so anxious, to

VOL. LIV. L*

1 62 When the Century was Young.

think how dreary it was it made it harder to proceed. I watched
all along the road behind me, as much as that in front, for if the man
reached the town, finding me gone, he would come and overtake me,
and now I wished I had done one thing, now another, but kept on
walking all the time, going back a few steps occasionally if I fancied
I heard horses coming behind me. By this time the light was getting
very uncertain, and I could think I saw horses in the distance many
times quite plainly, but when I got near it was only a tree or shadow,
or something like that. Everything I heard or saw seemed like horses,
until I could not trust my own eyes and ears, and thought if they
really came I might let them go past me, after all.

There were a few cottages at first, but now climbing and going
down the hillside between close hedges the road was terribly lonely
and I was very uneasy in my mind. It was getting dark, too, and I
had barely gone half the way ; under the woods it would be like mid-
night, and I was very much afraid to think of going by Trawsnant.
Should I go back after all ? I stopped still to think of it, and then I
remembered, of a sudden, I could call at Capelly, and John Davies,
the farmer, who lived there, would send one of the men with me the
rest of the way with a lantern. This gave me a little courage to go
on, of course still hoping that I might meet the groom, and what with
that and with thinking I was doing no harm, and that the Lord would
take care of me in the darkness and the great waters as much as in
the light, I got on somehow.

Only once, rather early in the walk, a man passed me, and there

was something I did not like at all in the look of him. He had a fur

cap pulled down over his face, almost meeting his cravat, and he came

down out of one of the side lanes quite suddenly upon me. He did

not want to speak to me, however, any more than I to him, and I

thought I heard him getting over the hedge after I had passed. It

was just light enough when we met to see that his face was muffled up,

but then the hedges got higher and the night was fast falling, and I

was very glad to reach Capelly, and get inside the clean, bright kitchen

where Mrs. Davies took me. Unluckily, however, every servant from

the farm was away, gone to a large fair at Llanon. They might not

be back for two hours or more. There was one young man left, whom

they had taken on a month's trial, but he had turned out so worthless

and wild he was to be sent off, although his time was not half up.

Mrs. Davies did not much like his walking with me, and talked so

loud about it it would have been no wonder if he had heard her from

the stables. They were very anxious, however, to help me, seeing how

much I wanted to get on, if only on account of having the medicine

for Miss Lucie, which she must take at a certain hour, and at last

John Davies settled I should ride home on one of the farm horses

that was old and steady, with the young man walking at the side with

a lantern. I was well accustomed to riding, even at night, so I thought

I could manage it. John Davies had broken his leg not long before,

When the Century was Young. 163

so he could not come with me himself. I think I hear him now
keeping on about it.

" I go with you myself, Miss Morris, but my leg not strong. She
coming, but not well enough to go so far as that yet. Look you here,
Miss Morris, was James Thomas, the bone-doctor, in the market last
Saturday, and he was say to your wife he got something in the bottle
for me to rub in it, and he give it him by going away, and she coming
wonderful now."

Of course he meant to say " my wife " instead of " your wife," but
he put everything in the wrong place like that. We used all of us to
like to hear old Jack Capelly, as he was called, trying to talk English ;
but he was very proud of it himself. His wife could not speak a word
of it, although they were respectable people ; but, dear me, in those
days that was nothing strange.

Well, they were very kind about the horse, old Jack going himself
to see to the saddling, and Mrs. Davies making me drink something
hot to keep the damp out. I mounted from the horse-block in the
yard, and then old Jack said —

" Shall the boy lead it through the gate. Miss Morris, and then you
go comfortable ? " So he wished me good night, and away we went.

III.

It was so dark I could scarcely see my hand before my face, except
just where the lantern lit up ; indeed, that much of light seemed to
make it darker everywhere else, and it rained all the time. By-and-
by we came under the woods, and the servant went up on the upper
path. I would rather he had stayed below, but, after Mrs. Davies'
account of him, I was afraid of finding much fault. Now, however,
he took to throwing the light more on me than before me, to show
where we were going ; and he lagged behind so much, I had more than
once to stop the horse.

" Could you throw the light a little more forward, please ? " I said
several times ; but it did not seem to do much good.

At last he gave a kind of whistle twice, not very loud, but I felt
almost sure it was a signal to some one, and he stopped a good way
behind me until I could not see a step of the way. Nor could the
horse, I suppose, for he stood quite still, as if we were to spend the
night there in the rain and darkness. I called to the young man
again to come on ; and, but for thinking of the medicine, I should
have been very glad by this time to find myself back at the farm, for
I was certain I heard men's voices whispering together.

The boy called back " Coming now," but there seemed like a
dispute going on and some slight scuffling. Then he came hurrying
on with the lantern. I was afraid to find fault, and he said nothing.
The horse went on, and after a while we came to the opening to
Trawsnant, where the brook crossed the road. Now, for the first

164 When the Century was Young.

time, I understood why the groom had gone to fetch me the other
way : the brook was swollen with the rains and was out over the
banks, and not at all pleasant to cross. I had asked John Davies if
the horse would know the ford, and he said he thought he would be
sure to, and I had crossed it myself when it was flooded several times
before ; so, thinking there was to be no end to my adventures this
night, I went out straight for the shallowest part, the light this time
luckily falling where I wanted it.

But we had not gone two steps into the water when the old horse
turned round. I suppose he thought he had had enough of it, and
would go home ; but I was not willing to agree to that and turned
him to the ford again, urging him on with my whip ; again he turned,
and so he went on for several minutes, going round and round slowly,
and not getting on a step.

" Oh, dear, dear ! " I cried. "What shall I do? I cannot get
him to take the water."

" Stop you ! " said some one, getting down the bank ; but the voice
was not that of the servant-boy, and the light showed me the face of
Mrs. Martin.

Before I well knew what she was about, she was up on the horse
behind me and had taken the reins, guiding the horse to a deeper
spot in the brook than I had ventured to try. ^^^lat she did to the
creature I do not know, but the next moment we were floundering
through the water, the horse finding his way along hea\-ily, and the
roar of the flood in our ears. A long minute, and we had passed the
deepest part, the roar got fainter, and we splashed through the shallower
water on to the muddy road. Mrs. Martin got down from the horse,
which she managed so much better than I, and I could not help
remembering what a clever jockey some one was said to have been
twenty years before.

" I took the lantern from that good-for-nothing fellow," she explained.
" I was coming this way, and could take better care of you than a
young scamp like that."

I thanked her and told her of my anxiety about IMiss Lucie's ill-
ness. The rain had stopped, and by-and-by we could see some stars.
I think there was a young moon somewhere behind the clouds, for it
was lighter than it had been. There was an entrance from this road
into a by-path through the park of Po^^ys Court, and I determined to
go straight to the house at once without waiting to go home first.
Although I had been talking, Mrs. Martin had said but little ; now
that we were going through the open lawns, however, she cast the
light of the horn lantern round us in all directions, as if to see that
no one was near, and then, with her hand on the neck of the horse,
said,

" You are not one to talk, I think ? "

" Indeed I am not," I said, " unless there is some harm in keeping
silence."

When the Century was Young. 165

" I am going away from this place," said Mrs. Martin; "it is no use
my staying here, and I wanted to tell you — that is all."

I never heard a more melancholy voice than the one in which she
said those words — low, hard and husky, coming as it was from a heavy
heart.

" Going away ! " I said in a concerned voice, for so indeed I felt.
" I am very sorry to hear that."

" It is ill with me to be going — but I have made enemies to-night
in Trawsnant, and I cannot stay. All I have done is to prevent
others having the chance to do wrong, but I must go all the
same."

" Is there any way I can help you, or can I get Mr. Powys to do
something ? and if you are going away to live, have you "

" Money ? " she said, as I was hesitating. " No, I want nothing ;
I can always get my bread- — but you have been very good to me, and
I shall never forget it, nor the family that lives here." She stopped
suddenly with a sigh that seemed to labour out of her very heart.
Her hand let go the horse's mane. " I cannot come further," she
said, " but I will watch from here that you get safely in. Say nothing
of me, if you will be so good, but let them take care of the horse and
lantern, and I will send that boy to fetch them."

She was turning away slowly, but I put out my hand to say good-
bye, and she took it eagerly. Mrs. Martin forgot herself just then —
instead of curtseying, her hand went up to her forehead and pulled a
bit of her hair ! For myself, I do not think I have ever grasped a
hand more warmly than that of this poor convict for the first and
nearly for the last time.

" God bless you wherever you go," I said ; " don't forget that He
will always be your friend. Oh, think of Him, sometimes ! "

" The Lord cares little for such as I," she said. " Things have
been against me always, and I have not the spirit to begin again that
once I had. I hope, though. He will \Aess you, whatever."

" I am very sorry you are going. Can nothing be done ? " I began ;
but Mrs. Martin disappeared into the darkness without another word.
Although I was so sorrowful for Miss Lucie, her lot seemed to me,
just then, dying though I thought her, less hard than that of this poor,
outcast, hunted man, driven away once more from the hovel that he
called a home, without a friend to go forth with him and help to cheer
his lot.

When I got to the house by a back entrance, one of the housemaids
opened the door.

" There for you ! " she said ; " it is you, Miss Morris, after all !
James, the groom, has been all the way to Trecelyn to fetch you, and
they told him you had started Trawsnant way, and he came every
step of it and never saw a sign of you. We was frightened then, and
did not know what in the world to say with Miss Lucie wanting you
so badly."

1 66 When tJie Century was Young.

The fact was that, when I was at Capelly, the groom had ridden by
in the darkness.

Well, for the next few days I felt uneasy in my mind, expecting to
hear that something had happened ; but the only thing that came was
the rumour of a strange story told by one of the gentlemen of the
neighbourhood, Mr. Harries, of Llwynddu. He had intended coming
home from some distance away on the very day of the fair at Llanon,
and he was to bring with him certain sums of money. Now, at the
fair, he got a warning message not to take the money home that night,
as he valued his life, unless he did so in company wiih. some men
prepared to defend themselves against thieves. Luckily there was no
occasion to run the risk, for it did quite as well to put the money in
the bank at Llanon ; and he stayed in the town that night, and nothing
more w^as heard of the business. I was half inclined to think I had
myself dreamt what had happened to me that night, but there was one
thing to make me believe it — Mrs. Martin was gone.

It was a couple of years before we heard the rest of it. Then that
young Phillip, who was so wild, was convicted for sheep stealing, and
executed. He was the last in our parts to suffer before the new Act
came in, and during his last days he confessed many things to the
chaplain of the gaol. Amongst them was this. He and some others
had a plan to lie in wait for Mr. Harries, of Llwynddu, that night of
the fair at Llanon, as they knew he was expected to bring home large
sums of money. Of course, they meant to rob him, and they watched
for him all night on both roads. I have no doubt the man I met
with his face covered was going across country to the high road in
readiness, and the others stayed in the wood. The servant-boy of
Capelly knew something of what was going on, and threw the light of
the lantern on me to show his friends I was not the person they
wanted. When they were talking together Mrs. Martin came up, and,
thinking the boy was frightening me with his tricks, got very angry
and took the lantern from him, and said he should not go with me any
farther.

Phillip also told the chaplain that Mrs. Martin was Will Duntze.
He (Will Duntze) had been against the robbery all along, but they did
not know then he had sent to stop Mr. Harries coming, and he was
wise to leave the place before they did, for when they found it out,
they swore, if he came back, they would tell the parish constable who
he was, and be even with him.

Years went by after this — about seven, I think — when one spring
morning I was in the fields, a boy from Trawsnant came up to me.
He said he was sent by Mrs. Martin, who had come back once more
to old Mary Duntze's cottage, and was lying sick there, to ask this
great favour from me to go and see her before she died.

I had no heart to refuse, and indeed there was no danger going of
a morning like that, although the place had still only an indifferent
name. True enough, there was Mrs. Martin lying on the bed, and

When the Century was Yonng. 167

one look showed me there was mortal sickness in her face. I am
sure she was glad to see me, although she said little, and the tightly
closed lips looked stern, and the eyes under the shaggy eyebrows
darker and more searching than ever.

She said aloud she wished to speak a few words with me alone.
Old Mary Duntze (who died soon after this) was very ill in bed, too,
in the other end of the cottage ; but there was a neighbour taking
care of them.

"Yes, yes, I'll go, Mrs. Martin, fach," she said, in a whining kind
of voice, but lifting up her hands and making signs to me as if Mrs.
Martin was off her head, and going only a step out of sight behind the
curtain. Mrs. Martin turned her head and gave one look that I had
no difficulty in understanding.

" I think you shall go outside for a while," I said. " I will stay a
little with them here ; " and she had to go, although she seemed very
dissatisfied. I shut the door after her and came back to Mrs. Martin.
She looked at me keenly.

" I think you know who I am ? " she said.

" I think I do," I answered ; " but no one shall hear a word about
it from me."

" I know that," said Will Duntze, for we can call him so now ;
" you saved me once from being taken, and I never forgot it. Others,
too, were very kind. Mr. Powys is a good and merciful gentleman,
and did more for me at the trial than any of them. I have seen him
through the hedge many times, and longed to say a word to him, only
I did not dare to show myself. You can tell him that when I am
gone."

" I will, indeed," I said, " and — I think you need not have been
afraid."

" Perhaps not," he said, in that hard way of his, which yet in reality
was not from want of feeling. There had been too much " perhaps "
in his life, poor fellow ; too little certainty that any one would stand
his friend.

" But I have other things to say," he went on ; " look, I have got
money " — and he put out his hand from under the poor bed-clothes
eagerly with bank notes held in it. " Take them," he said ; " see,
there are four of them — ;2f 40 in all. You can read and see that they
are right. If I keep them here, they will steal them from me, every
one, and my poor old mother is too far gone to have them now. I
shall not last many hours, I think ; but I should like her to be in
comfort till she dies, and then let us be buried together decently in
the churchyard, for we came of good people once. Ask Mr. Powys
from me not to let them take me anywhere else to bury me ; they will
let it alone with a word from him — mind to say, too, I did not forget
all he did at the trial. I could have taken the game in his woods
often since then — I had plenty of chances ; but I never touched any-
thing of his, never once, after he had been so kind to me. After that,

1 68 When the Century was Voting,

use the money — what remains of it — for yourself, in any way you like.
Don't think to give any of it to the people here — they would only
spend it in evil ways ; and indeed you need not be afraid to use it ; it
is all honestly come by. I worked for a long time with a drover in the
north of England, and I might have got on well at last but for my
health ; I have gone through many hardships, and led a rough life of
it all along, and so my health has been getting worse and worse for
years, and when I felt I could not last much longer I came back here
straight again ; it seemed as if I could not die away from Trawsnant
and my old mother. She was always good to me, and shared with
me when I had nothing ; and if she did not teach me better, it was as
good as she knew herself. Of course, I have sent her money from
time to time, and now you will take care of her with the bank notes ;
but I should like too," he added, " if she could have known about
them." He had to stop, from weakness, many times in saying this,
I talking in between ; and now he said, quite shortly, after another
pause, " I think I shall be dead before the morning."

I spoke of the chance of his recovery, and asked if I should bring a
doctor ; but there was no doctor nearer than Trecelyn, and I think we
both felt it would be no use. He was sinking fast. Then I spoke a
little of death and of our merciful Saviour and His forgiveness.

" Yes," he said slowly, " I am hoping about that ; but I have not
been one of those to go to church and hear the Bible read. I do not
know how it will be. It has been hard upon me here — it will be
harder upon me there, perhaps."

Then, in answer to what I said to comfort him,

"I had not many good chances," he went on, "and I was not bad
like some of them — always meaning to do mischief. I minded my
own business, but they were a bad lot. I was young, and they led
me to do many things. I was never afraid of Mr. Powys — I cannot
think why, for he was a magistrate ; and if I could only have been put
under-gamekeeper or something to him when I grew to be a young
man, I might have done very well ; but I am afraid God will be
harder upon me than Mr. Powys."

" No, never that," I said. " God is too merciful for that, and the
Bible tells us that He will not refuse pardon to any one who is
sincerely sorry for what he has done wrong. Christ forgave His
friends who had deserted Him, and — and the worst sinners, much
worse than you have been " (somehow I did not like to name the thief
on the cross to him, poor fellow), " if only they were sorry."

" I am sorry," said Will Duntze, in a husky voice.

I do not remember now what else he said, but he was very good
about everything, and I cannot help thinking many who pass for very
respectable here will come off worse in the world to come than he
who had so much punishment in this life. I think what I said was a
comfort to him, and when at last I came away he held my hand in a
long grip, looking at me as steadily as ever for all the death pallor on

When the Century was Yoimg. 169

his face. As I turned at the door, I met his eyes once more following
me, still with a strange, almost tender look in them, so large and
understanding as they were. The tears were in my own, and I hoped
it was not the last time I should see him ; but he died that night at
twelve o'clock — very quietly, they said.

Of course we did with his money all that he wished, and he was
respectably buried in the parish churchyard. I went to his funeral,
and we sang a Welsh hymn as we came down the hill taking him to
his last resting-place on earth. The rest of the money was laid out
wisely and to good purpose.

I asked to see Mr. Powys the day after Will Duntze died, and he
took me to the library, where I told him about all this from beginning
to end, winding up by saying I hoped he would not be very angry
with me. Being always so much with Miss Lucie and up at the
Court, I was used to speaking quite easily to him. I can see him
now, looking at me with his benevolent smile.

" No, not very angry, Mary," he said. " I am glad you w^ere able
to give the poor fellow some comfort at the last. I never heard any-
thing against him of which I thought much harm, except, of course,
about that sheep ; and, even supposing he was guilty, the punishment
he suffered was about enough for that. But, all the same, you had
better not be taking up with any more of those folks at Trawsnant, or
you may be getting us all into trouble one of these days."

He and other gentlemen, however, set to work about the place soon
after, and a few good cottages were built and old ones pulled down.
Some of the worst people w^ere got off somehow, and the rest were
reformed and frightened into better behaviour when they were more
w^atched. For years, now, Trawsnant has been as quiet and respect-
able as any other part of the parish, and a very different school to
learn in from what it was in the days when poor Will Duntze was
young.

I/O

THAT EVENSONG OF LONG AGO.

The lowly, fervent prayers were said,

The sweet, heart-filling hymns were done,
And, down the aisle with solemn tread,

The worshippers passed one by one.
But, in the twilight calm we stayed

With others scattered far and few,
To hear the organ-measures played.

As eager loving listeners do.

The sacred lights burned dim and low.

And through the silence rose a strain
In which we scarcely seemed to know

The master key — joy, hope or pain.
At last the mournful minor, trilled

Down through the quaint old Gothic aisle,
Our souls with holy rapture filled.

And touched with heaven thy radiant smile.

Entranced, I gazed into thine eyes.

And on thy fair transfigured face,
As if, by some divine surprise,

I sat within God's holy place.
And, as the rich strains came and went,

I somehow felt thy soul and mine
Were in one love for ever blent,

Pure, precious, constant, and divine.

When out we went into the night

All faded were eve's crimson bars ;
But in our hearts there burned love's light

That shall outlive heaven's shining stars.
We saw the church's blazoned panes

All decked with crowns, and spears and shields
We heard the fading organ-strains.

Then wandered home by moonlit fields.

And then I took that rapturous kiss

Which heavenwards turned my wavering fate.
And sealed for us our life-long bliss.

Beside the quaint old manor gate.
Dear organ-strains ! dear old church aisle !

Say, who can blame me, love, if I
Still bless, with silent, grateful smile.

That Evensong so long gone by ?

Alexander Lamont.

171

A VOYAGE ACROSS THE WORLD.
By E. C. Kitton.

" ^ TERY comfortable-looking poverty, I must say, Georgie," said

* Geoffrey Martin, looking round the little room approvingly.
Certainly the dainty furniture and hangings and the blazing fire were
worthy of approval.

" I quite agree with you, Geoff," answered Georgie from her low
chair, where she sat with her slippered feet on the fender. " At first
we found several drawbacks, but now that we have got used to
making our own beds and cooking our own dinners, we rather enjoy
life than not. Of course there are heaps of things that we miss, and
it was pleasanter to have servants to wait upon us than to have a
woman in every morning to 'do up ' the rooms ; but we are too
busy to have leisure to pine. I teach the young ladies of the town to
play the piano, and to speak their native tongue with accuracy ; and
Josie is daily companion to an invalid lady — hours from ten to eight,
and a holiday on Sunday. We rather like it."

" But Anna would not bend her shoulders to the yoke ! "

" No ; Anna thought poverty in England very objectionable. So
she wTote to James that she had changed her mind with regard to
going out to be married, and should sail for Melbourne in the next
steamer. We wanted her to wait for an answer from him, but she
had a more perfect faith in him than we had, I suppose ; any way,
she is gone."

" Have you heard of her arrival yet ? "

" Yes, and no. We have heard that the Petrel arrived safely, but
we could hardly have a letter from her till this week. It is just about
three months since she sailed. '

" Let us hope that her letter will not bring the announcement of
her marriage to somebody else upon the voyage. It would be too
bad if she broke poor old Jamie's heart, and those things do
happen."

" So do snowfiakes in May. No, I am not going to waste much
anticipatory sympathy over Jamie's heart. I am anxious to hear from
Anna though, and so is Josie. That young woman is late to-night,
and I am dying to see her surprise when she finds you here."

" She is due, is she ? " said Geoffrey, walking to the window and
pulling aside the blind that he might look out on the garden path,
dimly lighted by the gas lamps on the road. " Does she walk or
drive? There is a cab now coming along."

" Walk, of course ! We cannot afford carriages ! "

1/2 A Voyage Across the World,

" The cab is coming here, nevertheless. Stops at the gate — some-
body gets out ; it is Josie, or Anna ! "

" Nonsense ! " exclaimed Georgie, starting up in such haste that
her chair went one way and the fire-irons another. " Oh, Geoff, what
is it ? I am so glad you are here ! "

" I am glad you are glad," he returned grimly. " There, you see,
if it is not Anna I am a Dutchman."

" And if it is Anna it is her heart that is broken and not Jem's,"
cried Georgie, rushing from the window to the front door. " Oh, my
poor, poor dear ! " she went on as she flung it open and caught the
new comer in her arms. " What is it all, and how came you to be
back again ? "

" I am so tired, Georgie ! I cannot talk," answered Anna wearily.
" All my luggage is out there."

" Geoff shall see to that. Come right in, darling. You shall rest
and tell us all the tale to-morrow."

Rest was just what the wayfarer wanted. She drank her hot
bran.dy-and-water, and took her soup in Georgie's lately vacated chair
and was after that only too thankfully led away to bed. Her sister
undressed her and settled her with all love and tenderness amongst
the pillows without permitting a word of explanation, and then ran
down again to Geoff and Josie.

" I call this a horrid surprise ! " she said. " I always did hate
surprises ; they are no better than practical jokes. What do you think
of Jamie now ? "

" Perhaps the poor fellow is dead," suggested Geoffrey.
" Not he ; naught never comes to harm," said Josie spitefully.
" The best I can hope for him is that he is ruined."

" W^ell, heaven be thanked that whatever has come to him we have
Anna back safe. She looks horribly ill. Geoff, you will come in to-
morrow to hear all there is to hear about it ? " For Geoff was
evidently ready to depart.

" I shall be in first thing, of course. I would stop if I might, but
it won't do to scandalize your pupils. If there is anything to be done
you w^ill fetch me directly ? "

" I am so glad you are here ! " said Georgie again.
Poor Anna ! her tale was told in few words, but those few words
contained a volume of sorrow. Her outward voyage had been
prosperous and exceedingly pleasant. She was leaving poverty behind
her, and was about to meet the man to whom her whole heart was
given, and who had, as she knew, made a comfortable living for him-
self; she was strong and well and light-hearted, and all on board the
vessel conspired to court and flatter her. She might have chosen a
husband from amongst half-a-dozen men, but it was Jamie she wanted
and Jamie to whom she was going. All through the voyage she
pictured his delight when he should rush on board the Petrel to wel-
come her, but the Petrel arrived and there was no Jamie. Nor the

A Voyage Across the World. 173

next day, nor the next day ; she settled herself in an hotel, wrote to
him and waited.

After three days' waiting, a lady was ushered into her room — z. lady
most distinctly of the strong-minded genus. Not a bad-looking
woman, Anna thought to herself as the two stood watchfully regarding
one another ; not bad-looking, nor vulgar, nor quite a lady, nor just at
this moment quite at her ease.

" You are Miss Edgar, aren't you ? " she said, after that pause of
inspection. " It is rather awkward for us, you see. I am Mrs.
Barrington — you won't take it kindly, I am afraid — but Jem would
not come himself, he would send me. Now what can we do to put
things as right as they can be ? "

So the delay was explained. The delighted bridegroom had not
rushed to meet his bride because he was already husband to another
woman. It went hard with Anna, but she was a proud woman and
compelled herself to give a cold attention to the explanations that
Mrs. Barrington forced upon her. As if, being betrayed, it mattered
to her how the thing was done ! A rescue from danger on the one
side, a nursing through an illness on the other. What did it matter
to the woman they had cheated ? Mrs. Barrington's offers of assistance
were haughtily declined, and the first steamer that left Melbourne carried
Anna Edgar with it.

" Did you foresee this, Georgie, when you gave me the exact passage
money in that purse ' towards the house plenishing ' ? "

" Don't ask home questions, darling," answered Georgie with kisses.
" Lie still and get well as quickly as you can."

For Anna had been exceedingly ill upon the return voyage, and was
still terribly weak and shaken. The sympathy of all the place was
with her, for seeing the impossibility of keeping the disaster secret,
the Edgars had decided to speak of it openly at once, and friendly
gifts of all kinds came in to show the kindly feeling of the neigh-
bours. The little house overflowed like a cornucopia with fruit and
flowers.

Geoffrey hung about, ready to nurse, run errands, write letters, or
do anything that could be required of him, as long as his business
could spare him, and then unwillingly announced that he must go.

" You will say it is heartless of me if I suggest that it is an ill wind
that blows nobody any good," he said, squeezing Georgie's hand as
they sat over the twilight fire ; " but you see Anna could not have
done me a better turn than by coming to grief in this way. All your
misfortune seem to be good luck to me. If she had not come back
I should have been afraid to ask you to come to me, Georgie, darling,
for you would have said you could not leave Josie. I cannot offer
you anything like what you are used to or what you ought to have,
but you say you do not mind being poor."

" I like it, Geoff dear," answered Georgie ; " and, besides, your
poverty is wealth compared with ours."

174 ^ Voyage Across the World,

Three-and-twenty was Anna Edgar when she went out to Australia
in the Petrel. At three-and-thirty she was Anna Edgar still, and the
Petrel was steaming towards England with James Barrington on board.

The little house in Oxford Road had proved a cheery home during
these ten years to two busy and therefore happy women. Josie
had tended the invalid to the close of her pilgrimage, and now aided
her young daughter in the superintendence of the household ; Anna
had stepped into the place that Georgie left vacant, and had become
famous through the neighbourhood as a teacher of elocution. Her
romantic story, instead of covering her with contempt as she expected,
had brought her hosts of sympathisers and admirers. Life had
prospered with the sisters, and they could now afford to work leisurely
if they chose, and to keep the servant that they had once been obliged
to forego.

On a day in August, Anna Edgar was taking decided holiday.
Georgie and her babes had just left after one of their frequent gleeful
visits, and she was resting in preparation for the next event. Her
music was open on the piano, and her blotting-book on the writing-
table ; but her attention was wholly taken up with certain patterns of
laces and silks and velvets that were spread before her. She was
evidently choosing a dress or dresses for some important occasion, and
she fingered one pattern after another with lingering care. Anna had
always been handsome, but she was handsomer now than ten years
back, and to-day, with an expression of gentle contentment upon her
face, she looked particularly well. She was so entirely engrossed in
the train of thought with which the silks and laces were associated,
that she did not notice the sound of footsteps coming through the
garden, and started when Mary ushered into the room " a gentleman
to speak to you. Miss Anna." With a flush of surprise on her
beautiful face, she turned to encounter her old lover James Barrington.

" There is some mistake, I think," she said, drawing herself back
haughtily after the first shock of astonishment had passed. " You
can scarcely have \dshed to see me."

" There is no mistake," answered James ; " I have come across the
world for that purpose. They tell me you are still Miss Edgar."

" That is perfectly correct ; but I fail to see what concern it is of
yours — now," she cried with emphasis.

" I have come across the world, as I said, to seek you out, and ask
if you have forgiven me for what happened ten years ago, Anna. This
is my only child," he said, pointing to a little girl in a mourning frock,
who hung shily behind him.

Anna looked curiously at the child of the woman who had supplanted
her. She bore a softened resemblance to her mother, but in her face
was a strange expression indicative of Anna knew not what.

" Indeed," said Anna, and paused in-quiringly.

" I have brought her with me," resumed James ; " she is all I have.
It is almost two years since she lost her mother."

A Voyage Across the World. 175

" And you probably wish her to be educated in England. I am
sorry to hear of your loss ; it is a great charge to be left with so young
a child to train."

Anna was aware that she spoke stiffly and indifferently, but she was
still in the dark as to the meaning of the present interview, and she
resented what she looked upon as an unwarrantable intrusion.

" I brought her with me because I could not do without the only
creature I have belonging to me, and, besides, I want to show her to
an English doctor. Anna, you do not know what my loneliness is,
and how ill I can bear to be alone. I never could bear to be by
myself. It was that that brought about what you must look on as
my treachery tow^ards you. You know how I urged you to come out
to me, and how you would still wait till I could come to fetch you.
It was too lonely, and then I met with Jessie. She told you all about
it ; she was good to me and I married her. Then you came out, two
months too late, and it broke my heart, Anna, for it w^as you always
that I loved."

" Hush ! " exclaimed Anna, aghast, as he ended with an appeal in
his voice. " This is scarcely fit talk before your wife's daughter."

" Do you not know," he said bitterly, " the child is stone deaf?
The same calamity that deprived me of her mother took away her
hearing. We may say what we choose before her ; she only knows what
we say on our fingers."

" Poor little soul ! " said Anna, suddenly relenting towards the mute
little figure, and taking her into her friendly arms. She understood
now the strange expression that she had noticed on the child's face.

" It is a heavy trial to her and to me, and she has no mother.
Anna, I have come to see if you can be won to forgive me the past
and take the place now that you have always had in my heart. I am
a rich man now in everything but happiness ; I can give you all the
luxuries you w^ere born to, and if you do not choose, to go to Australia
I will sell my property there and purchase an estate where you please
in England."

Anna had released the child, and now stood proudly confronting its
father.

" I am exceedingly glad to hear of your prosperity ; it must surpass
even your expectations, and I trust that you may long enjoy it. But
as I said at the beginning, you have made a mistake, your presence
here is uncalled for."

" I know," said James earnestly, " that you must even yet feel sore
and angry when you think of my treatment of you ; but you do not
realise how much I too have undergone. Jessie was a good woman,
a good wife, but she w^as not the woman that I loved."

" More shame for you," interrupted Anna.

James put up his hand imploringly.

" You speak truly ; but it was you — you always that I carried in my
heart, and it is you that I have come back to seek. Anna, if you are

iy6 A Voyage Across the World.

still angry with me, will you not have compassion on the child?
Think of her helplessness, for what am I as a guardian to that little
thing? Women are always tender-hearted, and the child has never
offended you. Think of her need and my need, and of how I have
loved you always."

" And betrayed me," said Anna ; but he went on unheeding her.

" And how I love you still. Will you not yield ? You are still
Anna Edgar."

"I am," said she, blushing in spite of herself; "but here is Dr.
Wilberforce. I had better refer you to him, for this day month I
shall be Mrs. Wilberforce."

" Anna, Anna ! am I too late ? Have I come across the world in
search of you, in vain ? "

" You forget perhaps," she answered coldly, that there was a time
when you led me across the world in search of you in vain. I loved
you once ; but I am only a woman, and if I were weak enough to
love you still I should scarcely have courage to risk a second
betrayal."

She stood before him, proud and prosperous and happy, and if she
had desired revenge for her past wrongs she had it in that hour.

PARTED.

" The Spring is fair.
But I am broken-hearted :
Her very beauty's hard to bear
While from my dear one parted."

So to a lonely grave the mourner crept —
And saw no longer dark the earthy mound ;

Straight from its sheafth the flaming crocus leapt
And meeker snowdrops bent to kiss the ground.

A gleam of Heaven came softly through the gloom,
A sun-ray gemmed the tears in weeping eyes ;

For Spring had written, even on the tomb,
" Resurgam " — blessed word — "I shall arise."

Sydney Grey,

She came a step or two nearer, and took one of his hands in both hers.

THE ARGOSY.

SEPTEMBER, i8g2.

A GUILTY SILENCE.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

WHAT SILAS SAID AND DID.

THE mother of Silas Ringe had been fading through the summer
months, and when the cold winds of autumn set in, it was evident
that she had not long to live. Esther Sarel was often with her, and
to her the old woman would talk in a way that made Esther some-
times think that it did not so much matter whether one went through
life as a great lady or as a poor washerwoman, if only, when the end
drew near, one could await its coming as cheerfully and as hopefully
as did bedridden Mrs. Ringe.

There had been some sort of an understanding between Esther
and Silas that they should be married in the course of the next
spring, and visit the Great Exhibition together, at which huge toy-
shop Helsingham was to be represented by the sideboard carved by
Silas's cunning fingers. Latterly, however, the condition of Mrs.
Ringe had been such that not a word about marriage had passed
between Esther and Silas for several weeks ; but still Silas indulged
his dream in silence of what next summer was to do for him, — it was
to crown his love, and to render him famous.

Silas, on rising before daybreak one morning to go to work, went
into his mother's room as usual to see how she was. She did not
respond to his greeting with her customary " Good morning, lad."
Silas bent over her with the candle, and saw, to his horror, that she
was dead. She had died in the night, in silence and alone. Silas
called in one or two neighbours, and then sat down to ponder over
his loss, for he had loved his mother dearly. Of course, there was
nothing now to hinder him from getting married next spring : but, to
do him justice, this was a thought that just then afforded him no
elation. His first intention was to go up to Irongate House in the
course of the morning, and tell Esther the news ; but he suddenly
remembered that this was Miss Davenant's wedding-day, and that
Esther was to have a new dress, and would be very busy, and full of
the excitement caused by such an important event.

VOL. LIV. M

178 A Guilty Silence.

" Poor girl ! " said Silas to himself. " Her life is not such a gay
one that I should spoil her pleasure to-day by being the bearer of bad
news. What I have to tell will keep till morning."

When morning came, Silas put off his visit to Irongate House till
afternoon. About eleven o'clock he went into the town to make
some arrangements connected with his mother's funeral. As he was
crossing a narrow bye-street, he was stopped by one of his acquaint-
ances, a man whom Silas detested, an idle, drunken fellow who was
always more intent upon his neighbours' business than his own.

"Halloa! Silas," he shouted. "Thou'lt be too late to see her if
thou doesn't make haste."

"Too late to see whom? I don't understand thee. Will French."

" Why, see thy sweetheart, to be sure. I thought thou was on thy
way to see Esther Sarel before they took her back to prison."

" x\rt thou mad, or drunk. Will French ? " said Silas sternly.
"What nonsense is it thou art talking ?"

The man stared at Silas for a minute or two.

" Dostn't thou know ? Hastn't thou heard the news ? " he gasped out.

" Know what ? Heard what news ? " said Silas impatiently.

" Why, about Esther Sarel. She's committed to the sessions for
stealing a letter."

" It's a lie — an infernal lie ! " said Silas savagely.

" Is it ? " said Will French. " Well, then, I must have dreamed
it— that's all. Why, man alive, it's hardly five minutes since I left
the court-house, and heard old Bungay commit her. Little Dawkins
found the thing out, and Stuffer fetched her from Irongate House last
night in a cab, and she was put in quod till this morning, and
now — Why, if he isn't off up the street as hard as he can tivy,
pegging away with his game leg like one o'clock ! Talking's dry
work. A dram wouldn't come amiss."

• A quarter of an hour later, Silas had heard the full details of the
affair from a policeman with whom he was acquainted. All that he
said when the policeman came to the end of his story was, " How
can I get to see her? I must see her."

"You must get a magistrate's order," said the man in blue; "and
that won't admit you till after four o'clock."

It was instinct rather than the exercise of any reasoning faculty
that directed Silas towards the shop of his friend Van Nooden, the
bookseller. Haggard and wild-eyed, he walked straight up to Van
Nooden ; it was no time for the ordinary courtesies of society.

" I want a magistrate's order to see the young woman who was
committed this morning for stealing a letter," he said. " Will you get
me one ? "

" I will," said the bookseller promptly, who had already heard the
particulars of the case. And with that he stretched forth his hand
and grasped the hand of Silas ; and Silas knew that the sympathy of
one good man was with him in his trouble.

A Guilty Silence. 179

Silas, utterly regardless of the business respecting which he had
come out this morning, slunk back home through the outskirts of the
town, as though he himself were a felon, and every eye that encoun-
tered him could see the brand. On reaching home, he shut himself
up in the little outhouse at the bottom of the garden, in which was
the famous sideboard, now close upon completion. He sat with his
face buried in his hands, almost as immovable as one of his own
carvings, till the deepening dusk of the November afternoon told him
that the hour for seeing Esther was come.

" No lips but her own shall condemn her," he kept saying to
himself. " If all the world should believe her guilty, and she herself
told me that she was not guilty, I would believe her, and make her
my wife in spite of everything."

He found the order ready for him at Van Nooden's, and he walked
thence to the prison like a man in a nightmare. He knocked,
presented his Open Sesame, and was admitted through a little wicket,
which snapped him up and shut its teeth upon him with cool indiffer-
ence, as though he were hardly worth the trouble of taking in. After
further jingling of keys and undoing of bolts, he found himself on the
inner side of a second door, and was then ushered into a great bare,
desolate-looking room, lighted with two flaring gas-jets, furnished with
a deal table and benches, and having a set of chains and half-a-dozen
ugly-looking blunderbusses by way of ornament over the fireplace.
He had not long to wait. Presently an inner door opened, and
Esther Sarel stepped into the room, followed by a thin, silent, resolute-
looking woman, who placed herself with her back to the door, and so
stood during the interview that followed.

They had not told Esther who it was that had come to see her, and
with a wild glad cry of recognition she sprang forward to greet her
lover. She sprang forward with outstretched arms, as though she
would have nestled to his heart, and have rested her poor aching head
on his breast, and have forgotten all her troubles in the light and
warmth of his love. Knowing herself to be innocent, she forgot for
the moment: that Silas had nothing to guide him in the matter save
her own confession to the contrary.

She was within a yard of him, she almost touched him, when
something in his face, something in the rigid immobility of his figure,
struck a sudden chill to her heart, so that her arms fell stricken by
her side : an invisible hand seemed to be interposed between them :
she fell back a step or two, whispering, " Silas ! "

Only a woman's faint whisper, but with such a depth of agony in it
as shook Silas as a young tree is shaken by the wind. He took a
moment or two to recover himself, and as his eyes met those of
Esther, the thought flashed across him that he had never seen her
look so beautiful before. She was very pale, and had large dark
circles under her eyes. Her hair was unbound, and fell loosely down
her shoulders. But already her face was refined and spiritualized by

M 2

i8o A Guilty Silence.

the fiery ordeal through which she had gone, and Silas's delicate
artistic sense perceived the fact, and took intuitive note of it.

There had always been a hidden fund of sternness in the composi-
tion of the wood-carver, and he now called the whole of it to his aid
to enable him to harden his heart against the influence of the pleading
beautiful eyes fixed so earnestly upon him.

" Esther Sarel, how is it I find you here ? " he said. He had
meant to speak very sternly, but his voice had an involuntary touch
of tenderness in it.

" Have you not heard, Silas ? Have they not told you for what
reason I was brought here ? "

"I have heard ; they have told me," answered Silas; "but I want
to hear the story from your own lips."

*' Oh, Silas, spare me ! " pleaded Esther. " Indeed, indeed, I
cannot bear to tell it you."

" I will spare you anything and everything," answered Silas sadly,
" if you will only tell me that you are innocent."

He went a step nearer to her ; he looked at her eagerly, fondly ;
but Esther's eyes fell before his, and she answered not a word. He
waited a moment or two ; then he drew himself up to his full height,
and gave a great sigh, and clasped one hand very tightly over the
other.

" Esther Sarel, are you innocent or guilty ? "

" Innocent, Silas ; innocent ! How could you believe me to be
anything else ? "

The last word was not out of her lips before he had her in his
arms and was kissing her wildly and passionately.

" Forgive me, Esther ! O my darling, say that you will forgive me !
They told me outside that you were guilty ; that you had acknow-
ledged yourself as guilty in open Court ; but I ought to have known
better than believe their lies."

He had his arms round Esther as he spoke, and was half supporting
her. Her face was even paler than before, and on it there rested a
faint sad smile as she listened to her lover's words.

" My poor old Silas ! " she whispered ; and then she made a little
7;io2fe as she had sometimes done in the happy days that seemed a
hundred years ago, — sometimes when Silas was in one of his ner\'ous
irritable moods, and she wanted to charm him back into good temper ;
and now, again, their lips met in a sweet lingering kiss.

Suddenly a fresh thought seemed to strike Silas. " But why are
you here, Esther ? " he demanded almost fiercely, as he took his arms
from round her. " What right have they to lock you up, if you are
innocent ? Why are they keeping you in this place ? "

" Because they believe me to be guilty, Silas. Because I confessed
before them all that I took the letter." She felt that she was sealing
her own doom in saying these words, but it was impossible any longer
to hide the fact that she had acknowledged her guilt before the

A Guilty Silence. i8i

magistrates. Her difficulty lay in reconciling to her lover's satisfaction
the fact of her real innocence with the statement made by her in
Court, and which she was still prepared to stand by at every risk.

Silas's love for her might, perchance, carry him safely through the
ordeal, but the hazard was a desperate one, and the chance of success
infinitesimally small.

Silas stared like one petrified. " I don't rightly understand you,
Esther," he said. " Say what you said just now over again."

" I am here, Silas, because I confessed that I took the letter."

" You confessed that you took the letter ! Why, only five minutes
ago you told me you were innocent ! What am I to believe ? "

" I am innocent, Silas, and I want you to believe me so."

" Now I understand. You were nervous and frightened in Court,
and they bullied you into saying that you took the letter ; but you
will tell them the truth to-morrow, and then they can't detain you any
longer. Is not that so ? "

" That is not so, Silas. I am innocent. I did not take the letter.
I tell this to you, and to you alone. Before the world I shall abide
by my false confession ; and the world will believe me guilty."

" Esther, are you mad ? " cried Silas, seizing her by the arm, and
gazing fixedly into her eyes as if looking there for some trace of
insanity. "You set before me a riddle that is hard to read."

" I am not mad," answered Esther sadly. " I was never more sane
and sincere than I am at this moment. Oh, Silas ! you love me, and
your love has made the happiness of my life. The riddle I have set
before you may be hard to read ; but is not your love strong enough
and deep enough to scorn the opinion of the world, even although
that opinion be based on my own words, and to believe me innocent
when I swear to you, and you alone, that I am so ? Is not your love
strong enough to do all this ? "

" Esther, I detest mystery ; I hate concealments of every kind, as
you know ; but show me your reasons, reveal to me your motives
for this strange act, and then I shall know whether to applaud or
condemn."

" My reasons are sacred, and cannot be told even to you, Silas.
That they are all-sufficient you may well believe, otherwise you would
not see me in this plight. Oh, Silas ! cannot you have faith in me ? "

" Faith ! yes, up to a certain point. But the woman I make my
wife must have no concealments from me. You must either tell me
every particular of this strange affair, and allow me to judge for
myself, or you and I must bid each other farewell for ever."

He spoke very sternly, and when he had ended, Esther still stood
before him with downcast eyes, in a sort of proud humility, neither
looking up to his face nor answering him. He waited a few moments,
as if expecting her to reply ; then he spoke again, more gently this time
than before.

"Do you not see, Esther," he said; "cannot you understand how

1 82 A Guilty Silence.

impossible it is for me to take as my wife a woman who has undergone
a conviction for felony ? unless — mind you, I say unless — some
adequate and powerful reason be furnished me, which convinces me
of her innocence, and at the same time proves to me that she had no
choice left her but to act as she did act. Furnish me with such
adequate proof in the present case, and I will laugh to scorn the
opinion of the w^orld, and make you my wife in spite of everything ! "

It was a sore temptation. She must either tell her lover everything
— reveal to him who was the real culprit, and detail the reasons that
had induced her to shift the guilt on to her own shoulders — or
consent to lose him for ever. She was too well acquainted with
Silas's disposition, not to feel sure that were he to know all, he would
at once insist upon her stating the real facts of the case, and clearing
herself in the eyes of the world ; and that if she refused to do so, he
would do so for her, in spite of anything she might say to the contrary.
It was, indeed, a sore temptation. On the one hand, she saw her
happy married life — home, husband, children — all that, just then,
seemed to make the future worth living for, slipping bodily away from
her. On the other hand, she felt that if she bought happiness at the
price at which it was offered to her, it would be a happiness that
would quickly turn to remorse ; that she should despise herself for
ever for what she had done, and that for her life would have lost its
savour.

A few moments given to deep silent thought, and then her election
was made. " Silas," she said very tenderly and very sadly, " what you
have stated is quite true. It is not fit that you should take a woman
with a prison-taint upon her as your wife. I cannot give you my
reasons for acting as I have decided to act, and therefore, as you say,
here we must part." She came a step or two nearer, and took one of
his hands in both hers. " Silas," she went on, " we have loved each
other very dearly, and it will be very, very hard to say farewell. But
there are worse things than a bleeding heart ; and Heaven in time
will give peace to both of us. You will now be able to give yourself
entirely to your carving, and a few years hence you will be a famous
man. But you will think sometimes of your poor Esther, won't you,
Silas ? And be sure of one thing, dear, that however long you may
live, you will never find any one who will love you more truly and
devotedly than I have done. And now, darling, give me one last kiss,
and then — farewell."

Silas's lips were working convulsively, but by a great effort he
mastered his emotion, and drawing away his hand from Esther's
loving grasp, he said hoarsely, " Esther Sarel, for the last time I ask
you to read this riddle for me. How can you be innocent and guilty
at the same time ? You have just asserted to me that you did not
steal the letter ; will you make the same assertion in Court to-
morrow ? "

" I cannot, Silas. In the eyes of the world I must remain guilty."

A Guilty Silence. 183

" That will do," he said. " Not another word is needed. It is
indeed fit that we should part. You have shattered the happiness of
my life : let us hope that you are satisfied with your handiwork. No,
touch me not ! " he added, as Esther tried to take his hand again.
" I have loved you and cherished you. Oh, how I have loved you !
But like a viper you have turned and stung me. If I were to curse
you, it would not be more than you deserve. But you will be
wretched enough without that. You must go your way, and I must
go mine ; but never, to my dying day, will I forgive the wrong you
have done me. May your heart wither up from this hour, and may
you never know what it is to be loved again ! Go ! I hate you ! "

He strode past her towards the door, at which the silent janitress
was still standing.

" Silas ! " A wild, shrill, agonizing cry that rang through the great
bare room, and rang for many a weary day and night through the
heart of him who heard it.

He turned at the door. He saw Esther's white anguished face,
and clasped hands, and straining eyes ; but all that he said was what
he had said before. " Go ! I hate you ! " Then he passed out into
the courtyard of the gaol, and Esther fell senseless to the ground.

Silas went home, to the home w^here lay his dead mother. How
the next few days passed with him he never afterwards cared to recollect.
Neighbours were kind, and under the double affliction that had fallen
upon him, they took off his hands all the cares of the funeral, leaving
him at liberty to brood in solitude over his own miserable thoughts.
Then came the day of the funeral. As Silas saw his mother's coffin
lowered into the grave, he said to himself, " Now I am indeed alone
on earth. I wish that I lay there, silent and cold, beside her ! "
Then with dry eyes he turned from the grave, and went back to his
lonely home. Very lonely and very desolate it looked in the chill
twilight of the November afternoon, and Silas shuddered as he
crossed the threshold and went in. First one neighbour, and then
another, came to inquire whether he was in want of anything —
whether he would not go back to tea with them ; but Silas answered
them out of the ghostly twilight that he needed nothing save quiet
and rest, and bade each of them a kindly good-night.

By-and-by he was left quite alone. The solitude seemed to deepen
inside and outside the little house, and the darkness to brood over
it with darker wings. Then Silas's purpose grew strong within him.
He took a bunch of keys and his hat, and went down the little
garden path to the outhouse in which the sideboard was locked up.
He went in, and lighted his lamp.

No eye save his own w^ould have discerned that a few last finishing
touches were still needed to complete his work ; and, in truth, there
was not much left to do at it. For several weeks past he had been
lingering over it, elaborating, with loving, patient care, one minute
point after another, till even to his fastidious taste there seemed

184 A Guilty Silence.

little left for him to alter. Every feather, every leaf, every bit of
grass and weed, had been touched and retouched, so as to make
the whole as close a copy of nature as the material in which he
worked would admit of. The final polishing was still needed, after
which it was to be exhibited in Helsingham for a few weeks, and
then packed up, preparatory to being sent* to London for the
Great Exhibition that was to open there in the spring of the following
year.

But all Silas's hopes and plans and ambitious views were changed
and broken now. There had always been something unstable and
crotchety about him ; his mind seemed deficient in balance ; he was
ruled too strongly by the impulses of the moment, and was wanting
in foresight and decision of purpose. The love of Esther Sarel had
given an element of steadfastness to his life, had lent concentration
to his ambition, and shown him a clear purpose for which to strive.
That love was now broken, scattered into fragments, never to be
pieced together in this world ; and Silas felt like a vessel without
rudder or compass, drifting helplessly he neither knew nor cared
whither. All he knew was, that he wanted to be revenged on
something or somebody. A sort of blind, unreasoning fury filled
his heart, which must find vent somehow, or would end in his taking
his own life. " What is the good of life ? Is there anything worth
living for?" he kept on asking himself; and his heart answered
" No " to both questions. There was a strong nail behind the out-
house-door. If, now, he had only a bit of rope handy, he might
end everything in a very short time. He smiled bitterly to himself
as he thought thus, and putting his hand into his coat pocket, he
brought out a piece of stout cord that might have been made for the
very purpose.

" How long, I wonder, will they be before they find me ? Not
long, I hope," muttered Silas ; and with that he proceeded to take
off his collar and cravat. Then he glanced up at the big black nail
behind the door. " No fear of its giving way with me," he thought.

The night was wild and eerie. The November wind piped shrilly
through the denuded hedges, and tried the door and windows of the
outhouse ; and its stormy lullaby suited well with the tempest raging
in Silas's heart. He was making a slip noose in the rope with
nervous, eager fingers, afraid, apparently, lest his grim .purpose might
break down at the last moment, when he was startled by hearing the
click of the gate at the opposite end of the garden. He stopped in
his horrid task to listen. Next moment he heard the quick patter
of little footsteps down the gravelled walk, and then some one
kicking at the shut door. With a muttered execration he flung the
rope out of sight under his work-bench, put on his coat, and opened
the door.

The intruder was a pretty, fair-haired girl of five, the child of
a near neighbour, and an especial favourite with Silas when he was

A Guilty Silence. 185

in his more amiable moods. " If 00 please, Silas," she lisped out,
for she spoke more as a child of three than of five, " Mammy says
will 00 turn and have some supper ? "

Silas stood like a drunken man, and stared at the child without
speaking.

" What makes 00 face so white, Silas ? Is it because 00 mother's
gone to heaven ? "

With a wild exclamation, Silas stooped and seized the child in his
arms, and half smothered her with kisses. " Tell thy mammy I can't
come to-night, my darling. And here's a big, bright ha'penny to put
in thy money-box," and he pressed half-a-crown into the child's hand
as she slid to the ground.

She was hurrying off with her prize in high glee, but at the door she
turned. " Sud 00 like to be an angel, Silas ? I sud. Dud night."
Then she shut the door and went scampering up the gravel-walk, and
Silas heard the click of the gate, and was again alone. He turned to
the spot where he had flung his rope, and shuddered.

" I cannot do it to-night," he muttered. " That child has made
me feel like a fool. To-morrow I shall be my own man again, and
then I'll do it."

He sat down with a groan, and buried his face in his hands.
" I can't stop here," he said. " If I do, I shall go mad. With the
old woman in the churchyard, and Esther in prison — ■ Curse her !
curse her ! " he cried, starting up with clenched hands and frenzied
eyes. " I must get away from this place — get away at once, or else
I shall take to the rope, and finish myself off."

He had reached the door of the shed and half opened it, when a
fresh thought struck him. He went back to his sideboard and fell
on his knees before it, and kissed it fondly a dozen times, and
caressed it tenderly with his hands. " Good-bye, darling child of my
brain and fingers," he said. " Good-bye for ever ! Many happy
hours have I spent in carving thee and fashioning thee to my fancy.
And my Esther has praised thy beauty ; her hands have rested
lovingly on thee ; her dress has touched thee. Great Heaven ! let
me get away from this before I am quite mad ! "

Ten minutes later, Silas Ringe was on the high-road to London.
He left without a word of notice or farewell to any one.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

TRIX IN HER NEW HOME.

Hugh and Trix were back from their wedding tour some weeks
before Margaret's marriage. The house had been freshly painted
and papered during their absence ; new carpets had been laid down,
and sundry rooms entirely refurnished. The task of superintending

1 86 A Guilty Silence.

the arrangements had been intrusted to Mrs. Sutton, who was never
more in her element than when looking after workmen or servants,
and seeing that what was set them to do was done thoroughly. She
was quite reconciled to the marriage, and had taken wonderfully to
Trix, looking upon her as a promising pupil, whom it would be a
pleasure to induct into all the arts and mysteries of good housewifery.

Charlotte Heme left home on a visit to some friends within a week
after her introduction to Margaret and Trix at Mrs. Sutton's, and did
not return till a couple of days before the bride and bridegroom were
expected back. To have gone back to the old house after Trix was
established there would have made Charlotte feel like an intruder ;
but to be there in readiness to receive her, not to welcome her, would
put an entirely different complexion on the affair. During Charlotte's
absence from home — she always called her cousin's house her home,
even in her own thoughts — she had schooled herself as to the absolute
necessity that existed for her to treat her cousin's wife with some show
of affection. If she wished to remain an inmate of Hugh's house,
she must make believe to find pleasure in the society of Hugh's wife.

" I will smile, and stab while I smile," said Charlotte to herself.
" I think I have heard Tib read something like that, and it just suits
my case. Of course she will patronize me, and still I must smile ;
she will pity me, and I must appear grateful ; she will try to amuse
me, and I must seem very much amused. And, then, their billing
and cooing ! I hope they won't do any of that before me, or I won't
answer for the consequences. Meanwhile, I have my own little game
to play, and I intend playing it to the last card."

She was very glad to get back to her old nest, and Tib and she had
quite a little jubilee on the afternoon of her arrival. After tea they
waltzed together in the large loft over Charlotte's rooms to airs played
by the old musical box. Later on, Charlotte blew out the candles,
and sat in the dark telling one ghost story after another, till Tib was
half dead with fright and cold. She had never felt more thankful in
her life than w^hen Charlotte gave her leave to put on her things and go
home. Just as her hand was on the door, her mistress called her back.

" You never saw a ghost, did you, Tib ? " asked Charlotte.

" Law, no, miss ! nor don't want to neither."

" Well, Tib, you shall have the pleasure of seeing one before six
months are over."

" I hope not, miss."

" I tell you, you shall. I shall be dead in less than that time, and
I mean to haunt you. I shall come and wake you up in the middle
of the night, and — Ha ! ha ! ha ! Why, if the little fool wasn't too
frightened to stop and hear more ! "

No one who saw Charlotte two days later, waiting, in conjunction
with Mrs. Sutton, the return of Hugh and his wife, would have be-
lieved her capable of such elfish tricks. She had on a Quaker-like
dress of grey silk, with collar and cuffs of plain white linen ; her

A Guilty Silence. 187

ashen-grey hair was brushed and combed as faultlessly as it always
was ; her beautiful eyes, not altogether sightless now, seemed full of
melancholy meaning, while on her face there rested that expression of
child-like simplicity and want of guile of which mention has been
made before, and which she seemed able to put on at will.

She was perched in an easy-chair near the fire, her crochet-work in
her fingers, in a very silent and abstracted mood ; forming, in this
latter respect, a complete antithesis to Mrs. Sutton, who was fast be-
coming as nervous and fidgety as any one well could be who had still
some grains of good temper left in reserve, not to speak of a best cap
in a little bandbox close by, ready to be slipped on the moment a cab
was heard to stop at the door. Would they arrive before the dinner
was done to rags ? was the great question that troubled Mrs. Sutton's
mind. Happily, they arrived just as it was done to a turn ; just as
the short autumn day was fading into dusk ; just at that hour when
home looks most home-like, before the lamps are brought in, when
fitful gleams from the fire light up the old familiar room in which you
are sitting, and the faces of your dear ones ; when you seem to belong
less to the hard practical world of everyday life, and more to the world
of shadows and of dreams.

There was some kissing and much handshaking when they came in,
bringing Margaret Davenant, who had gone to the station to meet
them. Charlotte was kissed, first by Hugh and then by Trix. She
accepted the kisses of both on her little, cold, hard, smiling face, but
to neither of them did she give one in return.

" Welcome home ! " exclaimed Mrs. Sutton, between laughing and
crying.

" Welcome home ! " echoed Charlotte, but the words fell lifeless
from her lips. At the touch of her hand, Trix shuddered involun-
tarily ; it felt like the hand of a corpse. Still with the same hard
fixed smile on her face, Charlotte fell back from the merry talking
group into a quiet corner, waiting patiently for the summons to
dinner, which was not long in coming.

" I am glad to see you looking so w^ell and happy, Charlotte," said
Hugh, during the progress of the meal.

" Yes, I am very well, and very happy," answered smiling Charlotte.
" Great Heavens ! what blind idiots men are ! " she muttered under
her breath.

" Yes, the country air has freshened her up a bit," said Mrs. Sutton,
seizing on the topic. " Charlotte was brought up in a farmhouse, and
hasn't been used to be moped up in a couple of rooms ; and you'll go
into a consumption, just mark my words ! if your cousin Hugh doesn't
turn you out to grass a bit oftener."

As soon as dinner was over, Hugh, with an apology, went to look
up the friendly brother-practitioner, who had attended to his patients
while he was away. Now that he was back home, he was all anxiety
to get into harness again. Margaret did not stay long, and as soon

1 88 A Guilty Silence.

as she was gone, Mrs. Sutton took poor weary Trix into custody, and
insisted upon showing her through every room in the house,
Charlotte's Uttle domain excepted ; pointing out the different altera-
tions and improvements that had been made in honour of her
accession to power; favouring her, meanwhile, with a peripatetic
lecture on domestic economy, and the virtues of early rising. " You
may depend on one thing, my dear," she wound up by saying, " that
if you come down late yourself of a morning, the waste and extrava-
gance of your servants will cost your husband many a hard-earned
pound a year. And always be punctual with your husband's meals,
if you want to keep him good-tempered ; for the best of men are
like lions and tigers in this respect, that they are apt to show their
claws, and even to snarl and bite, when they are hungry, especially if
kept waiting beyond their proper time."

" Charlotte, my child, you are not wanted here," murmured the
blind girl to herself, when left alone in the drawing-room. " Indeed,
you are not wanted anywhere that I know of. You are neither useful
nor ornamental ; you neither love nor are loved ; not a soul in the
world would shed a tear if you were struck dead this minute. The
sooner you become food for the worms, the better for yourself and
everybody."

She rose from her seat with a sigh, and folded up her crochet-work,
and w^ent demurely upstairs towards her own rooms. As she was
crossing the first landing, she heard Trix's merry laugh from some
neighbouring room to which Mrs. Sutton was introducing her.
Charlotte paused for a moment as the sound struck her ear.

" How I hate people who laugh in that brainless way ! " she
exclaimed. Then she went on her way, muttering : "A doll—a mere
painted doll," and shut herself up in her own rooms for the night.

" They have made quite a gaoler of me, Charlotte, dear," said Trix,
jingling her bunch of keys as she dawdled over a late breakfast next
morning. " But I am afraid that not Mrs. Sutton herself can ever
make a tolerable housewife of me ; whatever small abilities I possess
certainly do not lie in that direction. I would much rather practise
on the piano this morning, or dip into the last new novel, than I
would go into the kitchen and look after my servants, or write up the
entries in my housekeeping book."

" Everything seems strange to you at present," said Charlotte ;
*' but by-and-by all these matters will come quite naturally, and long
before you reach Mrs. Sutton's age you will be competent to undergo
a strict examination in the art and mystery of domestic management,
and to graduate with honours."

Trix shrugged her shoulders incredulously, and went on with her
breakfast. Presently up came the cook, anxious to know what she
should order for dinner. Trix laughed outright.

" Help me out of the difficulty, Charlotte," she pleaded. " I
have never had to order my own dinner, much less that of other

A Guilty Silence. 189

people ; and I know no more than a Hottentot what instructions to
give."

" Clear soup, boiled turbot, and a roast leg of mutton," said
Charlotte promptly ; " and see that your potatoes are not quite so
watery as they have been for the last two days."

Trix listened in silent admiration.

" Suppose we put these bothering keys away for one day, and have
a little music," she said insinuatingly to Charlotte, when breakfast was
really over. " I am dying to try the new Erard in the drawing-room,
and I am sure that you and I can do some charming duets together.

" I scarcely ever play on the piano," said Charlotte coldly. " I do
not care for it."

" For what, then, do you care ? " said Trix, opening her eyes very
wide indeed.

" The harp and the organ are the only instruments for which I have
any particular liking."

" What could go more nicely together," said ready Trix, " than your
harp and my piano ? "

" I never play in public."

" In public ! What does the child mean ? I am not a noun of
multitude ! "

" I ought to have said that I never play except when I am quite
alone."

Trix's cheek flushed a little.

" I had a pleasant fancy in my head," she said, " that you and I
were to be like sisters to each other ; but if I try to get a step nearer
your heart, you retire into your shell in a moment, and I am left
standing in the cold outside."

" I don't think I have a heart," answered Charlotte, with a shrill
little laugh ; " or, if I have one, it must be in a state of ossification.
You know, I told you the first time we met, that you would never like
me, and now you are beginning to find my words come true."

" But I will like you, and love you too, in spite of yourself," cried
Trix the impulsive ; and with that, she started up, and flung her arms
round Charlotte's neck, and kissed her on both cheeks.

" Beware of the rouge," said Charlotte with a little grimace ; and
as soon as Trix's back was turned, she rubbed her cheek vigorously
with her handkerchief, as if thereby to remove the stain of the kiss.

When Hugh came home that evening, Trix had had quite a string of
comical little misadventures, with the narration of which she entertained
him over dinner.

" You must not take too much notice of what Aunt Sutton says,"
remarked Hugh. " It may be a very good thing to look diligently
after your servants, and to understand pickling and preserving ; but
some people make a mania of that sort of thing, and then it
degenerates into a nuisance. I certainly don't intend my wife to
sink into a mere domestic drudge, and I think my best plan will be

1 90 A Guilty Silence.

to find you a competent person as housekeeper, who will take all such
petty cares off your shoulders, and leave you time to devote your mind
to other things."

" IMuch obliged, sir, but you will do no such thing," said Trix,
with a little curtsey. "You drudge out-of-doors among your patients;
it is only just that I should drudge a little indoors. You have not
married an idle, fine lady, let me tell you. I have begun my appren-
ticeship to-day, and I don't think Aunt Sutton will find me an
inapt pupil. A\^ould your lordship like a cutlet a la Madame Trix
for supper ? "

Mrs. Randolph was as good as her word. She bought Francatelli
and Soyer, and studied them in secret ; for Mrs. Sutton would have
been highly offended had she known that Trix took lessons in such
matters from any one but herself. She set up a housekeeping-book,
which she was very careful not to blot ; and began to be less afraid of
her own servants.

" She fancies herself clever, and wants other people to think her
so," sneered Charlotte to herself. " But if I had no more brains than
she has, I would not be quite so flippant of manner, or so glib of
tongue. Won't Cousin Hugh tire of her in half-a-dozen years, when
her good looks begin to fade ! I don't think he really cares for her,
even now. She pleases his eye, and he fancies himself in love with
her ; and when you have said that you have said everything. If one
were only acquainted with some of those interesting little secrets, a
knowledge of which seems to have been so common among the
witches of years gone by ! How nice, for instance, it would be to
know that when you had made a wax image of your enemy, and stuck
it full of pins, and put it near enough the fire to melt a little, day by
day for several weeks, that for every pin-point in it the person you
hated would feel a prick of pain ; and that, as it melted, little by little,
before the fire, so would the person of whom it was the effigy fade
imperceptibly into the grave ! Or, if one only knew the proper herbs
to gather, with spells and incantations, at the full of the moon, and
compose therewith a draught which would wither the good looks of
those who took it, and turn them into old people long before their
time ! But all that kind of useful knowledge seems to be lost in these
degenerate days. From certain points of view it must have been by
no means an unpleasant thing to be a witch. \\'hat could be nicer,
in its way, than to be able to flit through the air on a broomstick ? "

Outwardly Charlotte was all smiles and amiability. But hers was a
hard sort of amiability, that invited no confidence — that repulsed it,
rather — that took note of everything, and was outwardly pleased with
everything, and was yet thoroughly hollow and artificial. Again, and
yet again, Trix tried to win her confidence, to become her friend ; but
all to no purpose. Charlotte smiled in her face, but kept her at arm's
length. More than ever now she kept to her own part of the house,
into which she never invited Trix to enter ; and in the imagination of

A Guilty Silence. 191

the latter, those mysterious shut-up rooms formed a ^erra i7icognita^
which she often explored, either by force or stratagem, in her dreams.
Many of Charlotte's evenings were spent with Mrs. Sutton, rather than
pass them in the drawing-room with Hugh and Trix, at home. For
Hugh would not allow her to pass her evenings moping, as he called
it, in her own rooms ; and though her cousin Hugh was lost to her for
ever, there were not many things that she could refuse him even now.
She could not, without intense pain, bear to be a witness — if one may
call a person nearly blind a witness — of the felicities of the loving
young couple. If Trix went to the piano, Hugh was sure to follow
her, and to linger close beside her till she had done playing. Perhaps,
if there was no company, he would kiss her when she had done, and
the sound stabbed Charlotte like a knife.

Then, by the same rule, if Hugh read aloud to them, Trix was sure
to creep softly to his side, and nestle there as by right. Sometimes,
as they sat thus, Charlotte had a painful sense upon her that they
were sitting with hand clasped in hand ; but this was not always the
case when she thought it was. Her heart grew in bitterness from day
to day, like an unripe apple on which no sunshine had ever fallenc It
was not to be wondered at that she courted the solitude of her own
rooms more and more, or that she preferred the company of Mrs.
Sutton to that of Hugh and his wife, who — so she fancied — notwith-
standing their extreme kindness to her, looked upon her as little better
than an intruder.

Then, again, the new mistress of the house was gradually forming a
pleasant circle of acquaintances, and set aside at least one evening in
each week for the reception of company ; on which occasions Charlotte
was always invisible, nor could all Hugh's efforts persuade her to come
downstairs at such times. She would sit in the dark in her own
rooms, with open doors, listening to the music and the singing, and
the sound of happy voices below stairs. The cloud that brooded over
her life seemed to grow denser and heavier at such times, and to bruise
her soul more pitilessly with its dull leaden weight — to bruise it, but
not to break it. One great fact remained to her — one that was
enough to keep her from becoming absolutely forlorn — her sight was
slowly but surely coming back to her. One great thought remained
to her, burning ever before her like a flame, which she tended and
fanned with careful lips, so that it should not die out — the thought of
the great revenge which she meant some day to have on the white-
faced witch who called Hugh Randolph husband.

CHAPTER XXXVIII,

A LITTLE CLOUD.

For the first three months of her married life Trix was very happy. She
thought on her wedding-day that she loved her husband very dearly,

192 A Guilty Silence.

but she found her affection for him growing broader and deeper as
time went on, running through her Hfe Hke a clear, full-flowing river
through sweet meadows, making all things more beautiful by its
presence. Between herself and Hugh there was a certain similarity of
disposition. The nature of both was healthful and buoyant ; they had
both the same clear, objective way of looking at life and its duties ;
and they had both learned the art of yielding in little things, so
essential to the concord of married life.

Yes, for a time Trix was very happy, and that, too, despite the dim
shadow that began to dog her footsteps by day and night, at first
almost unknown to herself, but soon with her full cognisance, although
she would not for some time acknowledge its presence, but tried all
she could to escape from it. That shadow was caused by the presence
of Charlotte Heme under the same roof as herself.

Not till Charlotte had repulsed all Trix's efforts to win her way into
her affections. Not till Trix had fought against her own instincts
in the matter till it was useless to fight any longer. Not till she
had discovered from chance remarks let drop by Charlotte herself,
and from hor own personal observation, how sly and cruel the blind
girl was in many ways. Not till all these things had fermented for
some weeks in Trix's brain, did a dim consciousness come to her that
instead of a kinswoman and a friend, she had in Charlotte a secret
enemy who would omit no possible occasion of working her harm.
" But what harm can she do me ? " Trix would sometimes ask herself.
" None whatever, so long as Hugh and I continue to love each
other."

If only Charlotte would take up her abode elsewhere ! was a
thought that was often in Trix's mind. But Charlotte showed not the
slightest inclination for doing anything of the kind, and not for worlds
would Trix have hinted at such a thing to her husband. For Hugh,
with that inherent blindness so common among men when women are
in question, saw and heard nothing but the smiles and pleasant tones
and the outward seeming of affection, which both the women put on
like a mask when he was by, and knew nothing of that condition of
armed neutrality in which they habitually moved when out of his
presence.

" You and Charley seem to get on together tolerably well," he
would sometimes say to his wife. " She is a strange, shy creature,
and very fastidious in her likings, but with time and tact you will
easily win your way to her heart." To all which Trix would answer
never a word.

But this state of things did not come about in a week or a fortnight,
it was the result of time ; and not till Trix had shed many secret tears
did she build into her life the bitter fact that in Charlotte Heme she
had an enemy whom not all her efforts could ever convert into a
friend. This was the solitary speck upon her happiness ; a very tiny
cloud, all but invisible at first, but destined to grow and extend from

A Ginlty Silence. 193

day to day, till in its blackness and storm both love and life itself
seemed in danger of utter shipwreck.

One winter morning, when Dr. Randolph had been about three
months married, the postman brought him half-a-dozen letters which,
according to custom, he proceeded to open and read over breakfast.
Five out of the six letters were read aloud by Hugh, and annotated
verbally as he went on, for the benefit of his wife ; but the sixth
letter was read in silence, and then in silence put away. He then
went on with his breakfast in a very absent-minded sort of way, and
did not linger when the meal was over, as he customarily did, for a
little nonsensical talk with Trix, but at once went off to his surgery,
and there shut himself in. It was the first time Hugh had kept
anything from his wife, and Trix felt as if her heart were beating in
tears when he left the room without a word.

A little later on Charlotte came down, having breakfasted in her
own rooms, and Trix went about her household avocations. Trix was
away about half an hour, and was going back to the breakfast-room,
when, just as she reached the end of the staircase, she heard her
husband and Charlotte talking together in the hall below. Hugh was
drawing on his gloves preparatory to going out, and Charlotte was
standing with the handle of the breakfast-room door in her hand. A
few words spoken by her husband arrested Trix's footsteps just at the
turn of the stairs. What she heard him say was this :

" I have said nothing to Beatrice about the letter, neither do I wish
her to know anything of the affair. Do you understand ? "

" I understand," answered Charlotte. " You will answer the letter,
of course ? "

" Yes, I shall answer the letter. I hope to have further and still
better tidings in a few days."

" If all turns out as you expect, you will go and see her ? " said
Charlotte interrogatively.

" It may be so ; I don't know," answered Hugh. " To have found
her again is something. Let us hope that the rest will follow in
Heaven's good time."

Then Hugh went out. As soon as he had shut the front door
behind him, Charlotte gave utterance to one of her little cold-blooded
laughs, and clapped her hands with impish glee. " The spell works,
— works, — works ! " she said. And then Trix heard the door shut
as Charlotte went back into the room.

Trix crept away to her chamber, as one utterly stunned. Hugh
had a secret that was to be kept from her, his wife, — a secret that
was shared by Charlotte Heme, — a secret that referred to some
unknown woman ! It was almost too preposterous for belief. She
felt as if an invisible wall had sprung up, as by the touch of an
enchanter's wand, between herself and her husband ; and it seemed
to her that, however simple and innocent this affair might prove to be,
her husband could never be quite the same to her that he had

VOL. LIV. N

194 ^ Guilty Silence.

hitherto been. That fine and deUcate bond of union which can
exist between man and wife only where the most perfect confidence
reigns between the two, in which the mind of each is as a mirror in
which the other may see his or her own image reflected, which any
attempt at disguise or mystery flaws irremediably, had been broken by
Hugh's own act, and just then the prospect seemed faint indeed that
it would ever be made whole again.

All that day Trix kept out of Charlotte's way, which was not a
difficult thing to do, for the blind girl spent two-thirds of her time in
her own room, and was well pleased to be left completely to her own
devices during the short time she was downstairs. Later in the day
she went to drink tea at Mrs. Sutton's, so that Trix and Hugh dined
alone. But the evening passed as usual, and Hugh uttered no word
respecting the matter that lay nearest her heart. Poor Trix lay
awake half the night communing miserably with herself, her soul
tormented by grievous doubts and misgivings.

A fortnight came and w^nt, and Trix neither saw nor heard any-
thing further that seemed to have the remotest bearing on the incident
of the letter. In her heart, the wound still rankled, but she covered
it up so carefully that both Hugh and Charlotte were entirely without
suspicion. Trix always took care now to be near Hugh when he
opened his letters, and at the end of two weeks her patience was
rewarded. A certain morning brought a second letter which, after
glancing at the superscription, Hugh put carefully away into his
pocket, without reading it or saying a word. All the remaining letters
were opened and read aloud. Charlotte was breakfasting with
husband and wife that morning, and Trix was curious as to whether
Hugh would take Charlotte into his confidence with regard to this
second letter, as he had done with the first. Charlotte, being blind,
was of course unaware that any letter had been put away by Hugh,
and the first intimation of such a thing must necessarily come from
him.

^^'hen breakfast was over, Hugh, according to custom, went away
to his surgery. The morning was clear and frosty ; and shortly after-
wards Charlotte put on her hat and went for a walk into the garden.
Trix ascended to an upper room, the window of which commanded a
view of every walk and alley in the little wilderness at the back of the
house. There she awaited the course of events. She had not long
to wait. Hugh had learned somehow that Charlotte was in the
garden, and presently he issued from the house by a side-door, and
went in search of her. Trix, from her eyrie, saw them come together
in the evergreen walk. Hugh put Charlotte's hand within his arm,
and they paced slowly backwards and forwards for a full half hour,
apparently very much in earnest ; and Hugh referred more than once
to a letter which he took out of his pocket, " the very letter that came
this morning," said watchful Trix to herself.

By-and-by, the interview came to an end. Hugh went about his

A Guilty Silence. 195

avocations for the day, Charlotte went back indoors, and Trix's watch
was over.

Dr. Randolph and his wife were invited to a party that evening at
one of the most fashionable houses in Helsingham. Some women,
under the circumstances, would have declined going, would have
upbraided their husbands, and have gone off into a fit of hysterics.
Trix did nothing of the kind. She had never looked more lovely
than she did that evening ; had never seemed to enjoy herself more
thoroughly ; had never been more affectionate towards her husband.
Her acting in the charades was something quite beyond the ordinary
run of amateur young ladies.

" Merely wants toning down the least bit in the world to make it fit
for any Metropolitan stage," whispered some one in Hugh's ear, not
knowing that it was Hugh's wife of whom he was speaking. " Just
the sort of woman, by Jove !" went on the would-be critic — "just the
sort of woman to make a fellow believe she was desperately in love
with him, and keep him with his eyes bandaged while she was quietly
playing some little game of her own. Eh, now, don't you agree
with me ? "

Dr. Randolph's only answer was an uncomfortable smile, after
which he took the first opportunity of removing to another part of the
room. Trix and he had a hearty laugh together, after they reached
home, over the stranger's 7na/ a propos remarks. " As if, dear, I could
have any concealments from you — or you from me ! " said Trix,
looking up steadfastly in Hugh's face from the footstool at his feet,
with eyes in which there was a world of reproachful meaning, only
stupid Hugh had not skill enough to read them. " So absurd, is
it not ? "

And Hugh, seeing only the smile that wreathed his wife's lips,
answered, " Very absurd, indeed ! " But, somehow, neither of them
laughed again that night.

More dreary days, and more dreary nights came and went, and
Trix still kept watch and ward unrestingly. Two or three times,
going suddenly of set purpose into the room, she surprised her
husband and Charlotte in earnest conversation, which ceased at once
as she went in.

"You look Hke two conspirators," said Trix laughingly, on one of
these occasions. " Well, I only hope that you are plotting something
for my benefit. Say, a charming bagatelle for my birthday, which will
soon be here. I shall look out."

The postman, one evening, left three letters at Dr. Randolph's.
Trix herself took them out of the box in the hall and carried them
into the drawing-room, there to await her husband's return. Two of
them were evidently business letters or circulars (Hugh was a specu-
lator in the stocks of sundry companies) ; but the third epistle, which
bore the London postmark, was unmistakably addressed in a woman's
hand. Trix looked at it curiously for a minute or two, and then

N 2

196 A Guilty Silence.

put it with the others. '• The crisis cannot be far off now," she mur-
mured to herself. " Yet he smiles in my face, and tells me he loves
me, and wishes me to believe he has no secrets from me. Fool ! "

" There are three letters for you by this evening's post," were
Trix's first words when Hugh entered the drawing-room.

She was standing with her back towards him, warming herself at
the fire, and after one glance at him as he came in, and a careless
indication of the letters with her hand, she resumed her previous
position, and kept on gazing into the glass over the chimney-piece, in
which her husband's every movement was reflected.

Hugh took up the two business letters one after the other, opened
them, read them, and then flung them carelessly aside. When he
saw the address on the third letter, he started, and his eyes went up
instinctively to the glass to see whether his wife was watching his
movements by means of it. But Trix was apparently busy examining
a tiny pimple on her chin, and not noticing anything that he was
about. So Hugh's eyes fell back to the letter he was holding between
his fingers ; he tore the envelope half open ; then a fresh thought
seemed to strike him, and he thrust it hurriedly into his pocket
unread.

" Merely business letters, I suppose ? " said Trix with a little yawn,
as she turned from the glass.

" Merely business letters," answered Hugh. " But all business
may go beg to-night, for me. My soul cries aloud for music."

So Trix sat down to the piano, and Hugh stood beside her for a
little while, and turned over the pages for her. But when Trix shut
up the book, and began to play a selection of airs that she knew by
heart, he left her and sat down in an easy-chair near the fire. Trix
went on playing one piece after another without stopping, glancing
over her shoulder occasionally, only to see that Hugh's attention was
far away from her and the music — that he was brooding darkly over
some hidden care.

" Where is Charlotte ? Is she not coming down to breakfast ? "
asked Hugh next morning in an unmistakable tone of vexation.

" She has a bad headache, and prefers breakfasting in her own room,"
answered Trix, not without a spice of malice.

Hugh shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing, and the meal was
gone through more silently than common.

" If he would only tell me ! " mourned Trix to herself when Hugh
had gone about his morning's business. " I could forgive him almost
anything if he would only take me into his confidence. But he will
not. There is something in his former life that he wishes to hide
from me — something of which he is ashamed. And he thinks so
poorly of my love that he will not tell me ! If this goes on much
longer, I shall /la/e him."

Going her rounds about two hours later, she went into the surgery
to see that the fire had not been neglected. Her sharp eyes caught

A Guilty Silence. 197

sight of sundry minute scraps of paper which had been thrown inside
the fender, aimed doubtless at the grate, but falHng short of it, and
still lying there unburnt. Trix looked closer. The scraps of paper
had been written on, and the writing was that of a woman. When
she had ascertained this, without pausing to consider further, she went
down on her knees, and picked the fragments of paper to the last
morsel carefully out of the ashes. Then she hurried to her own room
and locked herself in, taking with her a small bottle of gum, a brush
out of her paint-box, and a sheet of drawing-paper. The task she had
set herself to do was, bit by bit, to pick out and shape into a coherent
whole — or into something as closely approaching it as was possible
under the circumstances — the numberless tiny scraps of paper which
she had rescued from the fire. After three hours' close application,
the result of her labours was a document bearing no unapt resemblance
to a piece of mosaic work, of which the following is a copy. Where
words, or parts of words, are missing, Trix had failed to find the scrap
of paper that should have supplied the Mattes.

" My dear Hugh, — That I venture to ad ... . you thus after all
that has passed bet .... us, is a proof that your last letter has

influenced me in the way that you, in your , hoped it would

do. I have decided to do that which you so strongly urge me to do.
But I dare not go alone. You must accompany me. You must
smooth the way for me. I leave you to arrange all details as to when
and where I must meet you. It is a journey that I have longed to
make, day and night, for years. Yet now that the time has nearly
come, I dread it — oh, how I dread it ! But to you I look for courage :

to you I happy in your love marry . . old

times that can never be forgotten . . . ."

The remaining fragments were missing. They had doubtless been
burnt. But such as it was, Trix read the letter again and again till
she knew its every word by heart. Then she put it carefully away in
her own desk, and locked it up. By the time this was done, it
was necessary to dress for dinner. Dr. Randolph had invited half-a-
dozen friends for that evening. It was a quiet little affair without
fuss or ceremony, and Trix had never shone to greater advantage than
she did that evening in her rdle of hostess.

" She seems to have grown ten years older in manner during the
last month," remarked Hugh Randolph to himself as his admiring
eyes followed Trix about the rooms. " There has been a change — a
something about her during the last few weeks that I can't make out.
Everybody tells me what a lucky fellow I am to have secured such a
wife, and I think everybody is quite right."

" Your good spirits were quite infectious to-night," said the doctor
to his wife, when their guests were all gone, and while they were
waiting for their bed candles. " We should have bored one another
dreadfully, if we had not had you to keep us alive."

1 98 A Guilty Silence,

" My good spirits keep you alive ! " said Trix, with a little shrug.
" Why, I am the most melancholy woman in Helsingham ! "

Whereupon, Hugh Randolph had a hearty laugh, and then went
whistling upstairs to bed.

Two days passed, and, so far as Trix could make out, no further
letters were received by Hugh from his female correspondent.
Charlotte Heme and he had one or two secret conferences when Trix
was supposed, to be out of the way, but there was not one of them of
which she was not cognizant. On the evening of the second day,
Hugh said to his wife, " I am going to London to-morrow."

Trix's heart gave a great bound, and for a moment or two she could
not speak. She stooped, and pretended to pick something off the
floor. Then she said :

" To London ! That will be charming, — especially if you should
have the good sense to take your wife with you."

" In the present case, that, unfortunately, is impossible. My busi-
ness is of such a nature that I cannot ask you to accompany me,
greatly as I should like, under other circumstances, to have had you
with me."

" A very pretty speech, but rather too ornate for my fancy. Excusez-
nwi^ if I seem rude. Well, sir, if your business is of such a nature
that a lady may not go with you, you must perforce go alone. At
what hour does your lordship start ? "

" I purpose going by the 2.40 p.m. train. But, Trix, dear, it is
hardly like you to be put out by a little desagrhnent of this sort. I
am called from home, and I must go. We doctors are the slaves of
others."

" Do you think, Hugh, that you quite comprehend my feelings in
this matter ? " said Trix very gently. " This will be our first sepa-
ration since our marriage. Is it not possible that I may feel your
journey to London a little on that score, and without any reference
to my own desire to go there ? "

" I am a stupid fool, and deserve the reproof," said Hugh emphati-
cally. " As you say, this will be our first parting, and I trust that it
will be our last for a long, long time to come. You may be very sure
of this, that I shall hasten back home as quickly as I can."

" Hypocrite ! " muttered Trix, under her breath. " Oh, if I could
but hate him ! "

The 2.40 train next day carried Hugh Randolph London-wards.
Another of its passengers was his wife, who, thickly veiled and plainly
dressed, had followed him to the station, had taken a ticket unper-
ceived by him, and was now seated in another carriage of the same
train. She was fully bent on tracking out the dark secret, on which,
as on a sunken rock whose dimensions the mariner cannot even guess
at, the argosy of her wedded Hfe seemed in danger of utter shipwreck.

{To be continued^

199

THE WILD GILROYS.

By Rosa Mackenzie Kettle, Author of " The Last Mackenzie
OF Redcastle," " On Leithay's Banks," etc., etc.

I.

l\/r Y school-friend Elspeth, or, as we called her, Elsie Gilroy, came of
^^^ a wild stock deep-rooted in the Perthshire Highlands. Though in
past years our families had been intimately connected we had never met
until we were numbered among the twelve girls educated by the Miss
Lewins in Edinburgh.

It had been a sore trial to us both — one which drew us nearer
together — to be sent from our country homes, and separated from our
brothers. Had it been a boys' school, I think we could have borne
it better ; but a dozen girls — what could we have in common with
each other?

We could both of us ride fearlessly across country, taking lightly
any fence and dyke in our way, pull an oar, play cricket, or keep
the score, hit a mark with arrow, pistol, or rifle ; but of what use
would these powers be in a town among young ladies ?

Fortunately for us the Miss Lewins were not as anxious to make
their pupils proficient in half-a-dozen showy accomplishments, as they
were to fortify our minds and hearts for our life's work. It was the
fashion of that day for ladies, not richly endowed, to take into their
homes, and educate, a limited number of girls. These good sisters
threw their whole hearts into the task. If we did not profit by their
care as we ought to have done, it was not their fault, but ours. On
the whole, I think we did them credit.

I remember well how grand the Highland pass looked on my first
approach to my friend's house, where we were to spend Christmas
together. Cataracts, arrested and turned to ice, glittered in the frosty
sunshine ; holly-berries gleamed redly in the crannies of the lofty rocky
walls, against which clung the bare roots and stems of leafless trees ;
snow-capped mountains towered overhead.

There were no snow-ploughs in those days ; but I think the
storms were fiercer and the drifts deeper than now. We had time to
study the prospect, for our carriage broke down, and we had to make
our way as best we could on foot.

Fortunately we were not shod like the ladies of the town ; but even
our country training did not prevent our finding further progress, as
Miss Lewin, in her pretty old-fashioned French, would have had us
say, un peu difficile.

But we were not unaided ; the defile resounded with glad shouts of

200 The Wild Gilroys.

welcome. All the clan seemed on foot to welcome the Laird's
daughter ; and I, her chosen friend, was not neglected.

I have not forgotten — I never shall forget — the warm hand-clasp
that closed upon my frozen fingers ; the voice that whispered words of
cheer ; the glance from dark eyes, shaded by yet darker lashes, which
met mine, and warmed the heart of the chilled, timid stranger, when
she first entered that Highland glen.

It seemed no great distance, after all, to the Laird's mansion, which
lay back among woods which extended to the foot of the snowy
mountains. Our walk, in spite of difficulties, was a merry one.

" The wild Gilroys," with their dark, flashing eyes and passionate
tempers, never frightened me. Perhaps the free out-of-door life I had
led with my own brothers made me understand them better than I had
at first appreciated my school companions. Oh ! to be in the country
— to see the grand hills and feel the crisp touch of those Highland
breezes, without being told to lower my veil and take care of my
complexion ! It was life, it was joy to me — fuller life, deeper joy —
and there was plenty of both in my friend's home.

Elsie was scarcely less of a companion to her bold brothers than I
had been to mine. I was motherless ; but there was a delicate
matron in the eagle's nest, and she was the only girl. It had been
thought right to send her away for a while, as the boys were a
trifle rough, to where she would have other healthy girls to keep her
company.

Now she had come home for a time to be the idol of her mother's
heart, and her brothers' plaything. Mr. Gilroy said, as he gazed
proudly at his recovered darling, that " there had been nae luck
about the house while Elsie was awa'."

There was plenty of merriment now — in the evenings, dancing and
singing, games of all sorts, forfeits rigorously exacted. By day we
scoured the country on rough-coated ponies, which seemed to enjoy
the swift pace as much as we did. It was a bright, brief holiday,
very different from the quiet weeks in the Edinburgh square.

One night, when the wind howled dismally, and moaned among
the ivy leaves encircling the old windows, Elsie and I were sitting in
an unusually grave mood with her mother, who was not feeling well.
Changes of weather always affected her, especially violent gales ; I
have seen her turn pale when the blasts shook the walls of the old
house. As for me, I loved to hear the wind roar and sweep down
the pass, where it often levelled some lordly pine ; but we seemed
safe within those strong walls, and youth is often selfish. It did not
occur to me then, as it does now, bringing always her image before
me, to murmur, as Lady Elspeth did —

" Oh, hear us, when we pray to Thee
For those in peril on the sea."

" Did you live on the coast ? '"' I said eagerly. " I have never

Tlic Wild Gilroys, 201

seen the sea — the open sea, in a great storm. I am sure I should
love it."

" Yes ; and I have lived with men who went down to the deep and
knew its fearful secrets ; but they did not return to tell them," said
the lady of the castle in a strange, hushed voice, only just audible as
a wild gust dashed the boughs against the windows.

" My early home was on the storm-swept coast of Erin," she went
on ; " most of my own family were sailors, and I think I inherited
from my mother a dread of the roaring wind at night. Oh, how I
have seen her watch and heard her sigh when I sat beside her in the
turret which overlooked the tempest-tossed ocean. My early married
life too was saddened by a storm at sea. And now my own best and
bravest — for I confess, though a mother should have no favourites, I
love Hector best of all my boys — is bent on leaving me and going to
make a fortune beyond the sea. When I hear the wind wailing next
Christmas, I shall fancy that it is sounding his dirge."

" Nay, mother dear," said Elsie affectionately ; " many go dow^n to
the deep and bring up its treasures. Why should Hector be cast away ? "

" Because I love him too dearly," said her mother bitterly. " It is
always the best beloved who are taken. Perhaps it is because it is
wrong to cling as I do, even to one's own child ; but he was my first-
born. Dear as you all are, not one of you comes quite up to the
young eaglet who gladdened my first years of marriage ; and he has
always been so bright, so brave, so bonnie. He is the heir ; he ought
to stay at home and help his father to manage the property. His
parents are getting old, and need him. Why must he go and battle
with the waves of this troublesome world, and cross the cruel sea ? "

" Hector thinks it's right to push his fortunes on the other side of
the globe," said Elsie, turning to me with a word of explanation.
" My father is not rich, and there are so many of us. Our grand-
father. General Gilroy, had lands in the far West to which we have a
claim. My brother wishes to inquire into it."

" Surely that is right and sensible," I said. " Dear Lady Elspeth,
we cannot chain the eaglets. They will, they must, take flight."

"Then let it be the younger birds," said Lady Elspeth sadly, but
with a fleeting smile. " Hector is our mainstay. His father will
miss him as much as I shall do. Oh ! Kate, help us to keep him at
home. Do not encourage this vain dream."

I felt myself colour guiltily, for I feared that a certain dawning
fancy had fanned the flame, and I knew that I had not tried to
extinguish it.

" Nay, if you cannot persuade him, what chance of success is there
for me ? " I said. " Besides, like Elsie, I think him right in his
desire to prosecute this claim. Let us hope that he will come back in
safety and victorious."

A wilder gust roared down the wide chimney, blowing the flames
of the wood fire into the room^.

202 The Wild Gilroys.

" That is a bad omen," said the trembUng lady. " On just such a
night as this his uncle, after whom he is named, is said to have been
lost at sea on his return home. Ever since then this roaring wind
has been to me a foreboding of evil."

Lady Elspeth rose as she spoke, and bade me good-night. I
thought she was disappointed by my not promising to help her, but
she kissed me very tenderly. Elsie went with her mother, and I, too,
retired, but not to rest. For the first, but not the last time in my
life, the wind and beating rain kept me awake.

II.

In the morning every trace of disturbance had vanished. The sky
was blue, the earth was green, and all my good resolutions of the
night before seemed to have been blown away like the snow from the
trees in the Pass. In the Highlands there is seldom a dismal thaw.

In my girlish heart, without the equally slow dull process of forget-
fulness, my fears were laid, I was standing by the waterfall at the
head of the glen, with Hector Gilroy.

He had convinced me that his prospects on the other side of the
Atlantic were as fair as the promise of this winter morning ; not, as
his mother thought, fleeting as the hoar frost, which so often heralds
rain.

With improved means he would return, and, after settling his
father's affairs, make me his bride, and bring me to the Castle ; where,
he said, and I believed him, I should be welcomed by all.

I told him of his mother's forebodings — of the visions she had seen
of his uncle, another Hector Gilroy, drowned, as she believed, at sea,
one, dearly loved as himself, of whose fate no certain news had ever
been received by those who watched and waited long, at last hope-
lessly— but he laughed at all my warnings.

Hand in hand we tracked to its source the stream that made its
wild leap through a chasm in the rock. Far up among the hills it
bubbled up among moss and peat and dead leaves. We did not
imitate those lovers who wandered by the brook, clasping hands
across it, till it widened into a river which separated them and was
finally merged in the sea.

Close together, side by side, we wandered on, with the meandering
stream, narrowing as it wound through the dark heath ; laying our
plans for the future confidently. The mighty ocean might indeed
soon flow between, but it should not long divide us.

" Give me one of your bonnie curls, Kate, and you shall
have a dark lock of my shaggy mane," he said, laughing, as we
broke a coin and divided it for constancy. And so we parted — troth
plighted.

I ought to have advised him to consult his kind good parents and

The Wild Gilroys. 203

my own father. I might have confided in my faithful friend, his
sister, but I did neither. He said that it would be selfish to add to
their burdens until his fortunes were assured, that he was certain to
come back safe and rich enough to claim me. Though he was one
of the wild Gilroys, I trusted him entirely.

I did not waste my time in vain regrets. Life was just opening
before me, with love in prospect, and I resolved to make the best of
it ; I took back to school with me a girl's energy and readiness to
learn, and a woman's perseverance. The good sisters were delighted
with me, and asked whether I had been studying with any one during
the holidays. I did not think it necessary to enlighten them !

From time to time letters came to my school friend, whom I now
regarded as a sister. Hector lost no opportunity of writing when his
ship touched at any port or met a homeward-bound vessel. He did
not write to me ; I had strictly charged him not to do so, as I would
not enter into a clandestine correspondence, and he respected my
decision.

Lady Elspeth's letters, which came frequently, always saddened her
daughter, and I shared in her anxiety about her mother's declining
health, and many domestic troubles. The wild young Gilroys were
always in some desperate scrape — all excepting Hector, she said mourn-
fully— and he, the bravest and only steady one, was to be the
scape-goat, and bear his brothers' sins into the wilderness.

I did not accompany Elsie to her Highland home when the school
broke up at Midsummer. My father and my own brothers wanted
me, and I confess that I was unwilling to re-enter the Pass, without
those soft words of welcome which had cheered me in the snow.

Besides this reluctance, I knew that few guests were invited now
to the Highland Castle. The slackening of its wonted hospitality
w^as attributed to the state of its mistress's health ; but had there
not been other reasons Lady Elspeth would not, in her unselfishness,
have put this one forward. Fragile as she looked. Hector's mother
was one of those who, when they have buckled it on, never willingly
lay aside their harness till the battle of life is ended.

The wonder was how my own people had got on so long without
me at our Castle Rackrent of a home. The feminine head of our
establishment, Aunt Monica, was not in the least like the grand saint-
like mother of the sinning Saint. Not one of our boys had been con-
vinced by her of, or had turned from, the error of his ways. Though
we all loved her dearly, not one of us ever thought of minding her.

Aunt Monica was said in her youth to have had a disappointment.
This I remember hearing before I attached much meaning to the
words ; but they were so often repeated that, at last, I attached to them
a sad significance.

It must, I thought, in my arrogant youth, all have happened long
ago ; but our gentle aunt still carried the memory of that early sorrow
about with her, and we all respected it.

204 ^^^^ Wild Gilroys.

My father never suffered her to be sHghted or thwarted. " Poor
thing, she had had enough mortification to bear," he would say,
under his breath. The numerous family connections who visited us,
always treated her with great consideration, saying to each other,
" How wtII she stands it," and we, careless enough about most things,
imitated our elders, and regarded our gentle aunt's mysterious grief as
a sacred thing not to be forgotten or spoken of lightly.

Soon after my return home, there was a great gathering at our
house. My eldest brother, Walter, came of age, and all the tenants
and many friends came to the festival.

I remember especially an old couple, for whom a carriage was
sent to the far end of the Strath, as they sat looking on at the dancing,
which was carried on with great spirit in the large hall, saying to me
when my father took me up to introduce me :

" Eh, Laird, yon's a bonnie lassie, but naething now comes up to
what Miss Monica was before her trouble." So it seemed that they
too knew about her disappointn^ent and felt for her.

She was very fair to look upon still, even now, and glided among
our guests with a grace which I with my school-girl awkwardness was
not likely to surpass. Aunt Monica had a royal memory and always
said the right thing to everybody. If there was any creature that day
who felt himself or herself neglected, it was not her fault.

As if by magic she found out w^herever there was any sore feeling
or misapprehension, and would set matters straight in a moment. But
it was all in the spirit of love and gentleness. If ever there was a
being who seemed intended to win love in return for her utter unsel-
fishness, it v/as my father's still beautiful sister, and yet she had loved
in vain. That man must have been as hard as St. Kevin !

In one of the intervals between the dances, I sat down near the old
couple, whose home was under the shadow of the blue hills which
closed in the upper end of the Strath.

I had seen my aunt talking to them, and I longed for the first time
to penetrate into her hidden trouble.

" You remember Miss Stuart when she was quite young ? " I said,
interrogatively.

"Ay, and very bonnie — not unlike yourself," said the old man,
kindly. " She's bonnie now, but it's after a different fashion. Just
like our loch when twilight comes o'er it after a bright summer day —
the soft grey after the sunlight's faded awa'."

He sighed. His wife said, somewhat sharply —

" Ye should na liken the young leddie to one that's so sairly
faded. Such a blight, let us trust, will never fall on her."

" What was it ? " I could not help exclaiming. " You all seem to
know about it, but I have never heard the truth, and I am not too old
to love a story."

" There's not much of a tale to tell," said the old man ; " but it
was a life-long sorrow. She just loved one of those wild Gilroys

The Wild Gilroys. 205

from the mountains, and he sailed away and left her. Mortal ears
have heard nought of him since."

" And she all busket in her wedding-gown," exclaimed his wife,
angrily, " waiting for her bridegroom at the altar ! I don't know
what ye mean by no tidings — there was talk enough about him in the
Strath, and in his ain country-side ! We saw her with our own eyes,
which were young then. Like a blushing rose she looked, with her
sweet red lips trembling. She's never got the colour back since
they lifted her from the tiled floor where she had fallen — as white as
any lily, and with the stem broken. There's a little stoop in her gait,
and she does na carry her head sae proud like. 'Twas a cruel thing
to have to tell her that her bridegroom was na to be found in hall or
chamber, and it just struck her down to the earth."

" Ay, ay, 'twas a cruel shame," said the farmer from the hills, his
eyes sparkling indignantly. " I was near enough to hear the Laird
whisper that she had best come home ; and to see him sign to the
minister that there would be no wedding that day. And so her life's
happiness ended. It all came of her fancying a wild Gilroy ! "

" You have fairly frightened the dear lassie, John," said his wife,
reproachfully. "She's lost her fine colour like her poor auntie."

" Never fear, Minnie, it's coming back again," said her husband.
" Our bonnie young leddie will have a better and truer man for her
master, who will not leave her on her bridal morn, like that feckless
gallant, Hector Gilroy ! "

IIL

I DID not leave my Edinburgh home— for it had become a second
home to me — when my education was nominally finished ; nor was I
the first of the Miss Lewins' pupils who had voluntarily remained
with them in order to profit by the advantages afforded to girls who
wished to improve themselves by a longer residence in our beautiful
capital.

There were changes in my father's house, and, though they were
for the better in most respects, I no longer felt myself necessary to
its inmates. The Laird had married again — a lady of suitable age
and disposition, who made him and my brothers happy, and was
beloved by them in return.

My engagement to Hector Gilroy was no longer a secret. He had
more than justified mine and his sister's expectations, and success
had crowned his efforts. The claim he had gone out to establish
had been granted. He had redeemed the inheritance for his father,
and got the estate into working order. The old Highland castle had
been brightened and beautified, and Lady Elspeth had recovered
health and spirits when I spent a second Christmas there, warmly
welcomed and acknowledged as a daughter.

2o6 The Wild Gilroys.

Hector had been aided in his difficult task by one of the wealthiest
and most influential men in the colony, who happened to be a native
of Perthshire. Mr. Gillespie boasted of being a self-made man.
Now an opulent merchant, he had begun life, he always said proudly,
as a boy among the Perthshire hills, watching sheep browsing on the
summer pasture grounds, snaring birds — up to every kind of mischief.
After all, however, he had proved himself a canny Scot.

He had offered the young Highlander a place in his office, and
very soon taken him into partnership. In fact, he had been like a
father to him, and had lately announced his intention of making over
the acting part of the business to Hector altogether, and returning to
spend his hardly-earned, well-deserv^ed fortune in his native country.

I do not think that I should ever have made up my mind to take
the step proposed to me by my lover — that I should cross the sea to
marry him — if this kind friend had not written and seconded it. He
was tired of work, he said, and longed to come home ; but he could
not leave Hector alone in a strange land. He must see him settled
first, with a gude wife to keep him company.

I showed the letter to Aunt Monica, who was spending a little
time with me in Edinburgh, and we consulted about it together. It
might be a long time before Hector could come and fetch me. We
should be keeping this good man waiting, who was yearning for rest.
I had no ties now to keep me in Scotland.

" Would it help you, dearie, if I were to go across the water with
you ? " said my aunt, while a soft, rosy bloom stole over her fair face,
as if she was shocked at her own boldness. " There's not a thing to
keep me at home now, any more than yourself."

I thanked her with my whole heart. Her unselfish offer lifted a
great weight off my mind. No opposition was made, and at the most
favourable season we left friends and country, and went forth into the
wide world together.

Our voyage was prosperous and eventless. Hector met us at the
port to which we were bound — a great, beautiful city, where his
partner's business premises were situated, ^^'e found rooms prepared
for us in Mr. Gillespie's mansion, but he himself was absent at his
country house, which he was refurnishing for the bride and bride-
groom's occupation.

He had promised Hector that he would return in time to be
present at our marriage, which was to be very quietly celebrated.
Afterwards, most probably, he should take his departure for Scotland.

That week, while we rested, was to me a very happy one. I
delighted in the new scenes around me, and in the presence of my
lover, as well as in looking forward to a happy future. The only
drawback to my otherwise perfect enjoyment, was that I fancied Aunt
Monica was sad and restless. She seemed terribly nervous, and
started at every unaccustomed sound.

" Are you afraid that we shall not be kind to you, Aunt Monica ? "

The Wild Gilroys. 207

I said, tenderly, on the day before the wedding. " Only think how
precious you will be to us both after all you have done to help me.
I never could have undertaken the voyage alone."

" I am afraid it was very foolish of me to come so far away from
home and our own people," she said, tremulously. " I am sadly too
old. I do not always remember how long it is since I was a girl.
When you are safe in your husband's keeping, I had better, perhaps,
go back to Scotland."

" Oh no, you must not leave me," I exclaimed ; " I hope you are
not thinking of asking Mr. Gillespie to escort you ? " I said hurriedly,
for it occurred to me that my aunt had asked several questions about
his plan of returning in the next homeward-bound steamer.

Aunt Monica gave a little shriek of offended maidenly modesty.

" Certainly not, my dear ! Mr. Gillespie would not care to be
bothered with the charge of an elderly lady like me. Never mind my
nonsense. I suppose the travelling has upset me ; and no wonder
when I never went farther from home than Edinburgh before in all my
life. The whirl of the machinery is in my ears day and night."

Aunt Monica was quite her own sweet self when she came to my
bedside the next day ; and when she helped me to put on my bridal
attire, I thought she looked very bonnie in her pearl-grey silk with old
lace cuffs, and the ruff standing up close to her white throat, with lap-
pets of the same falling over her light brown hair, which was still
without one thread of silver.

" And how do ye like him, dearie ? " she said softly. '* He should
be kind and friendly, if he's a Perthshire body." Aunt Monica sighed
as if she was thinking of home as she arranged the folds of my veil.

" Oh yes, he made me feel as if I were back in the dear old
country," I said. " He's just one of our own folk. There's an echo
of the accent of the hills lingering on his tongue, and a bright dark
flash in his eyes that I never saw in any glance but Hector's. He's a
Gilroy himself, one of the clan — that accounts for it, though it's a far
away kinship. Gillespie is a name he took up when he first came out
to the Colony. Why, Auntie, how your hand is shaking. I do hope
you are not going to be ill again on my wedding-day ! "

" No, dearie, I'll not fail ye — not if I can help it," she said
affectionately, rousing herself with an effort. In a few minutes we
were ready. The carriage was waiting. We went downstairs together.

I scarcely noticed what followed. I cannot remember anything
more, distinctly. I seemed to be in a kind of dream. When I came
to myself I was standing at the altar, my hand in Hector's. Suddenly
I heard a deep sigh, and lifting my eyes I saw Mr. Gillespie leave his
place and cross over to the opposite side hurriedly. There was, how-
ever, no interruption ; the ceremony proceeded and was completed.
When we moved away I noticed that Aunt Monica was leaning on
Mr. Gillespie's arm, looking very pale, and trembling] excessively —
much more overcome than I was.

2o8 The Wild Gilroys.

The clergyman gave her a glass of water after we had retreated into
the vestry, and, after the signatures were affixed to the registry, our
small party went back to our temporary home.

As we stood together looking from the large window of the saloon
upon the gay crowds in the grand square of that beautiful colonial
city, our host said :

" The time has come for me to speak plainly. Monica, you
have guessed my secret. I thought you would, though others might
be blind. I am the lost one, found again — your uncle — Hector
Gilroy."

He did not look at us, though the words were addressed to his
nephew, but at his forsaken bride ; then he added in a lower tone,
full of feeling, " Monica, can you ever forgive me ? "

She did not answer him in words, but silently placed her hand in
his. He clasped it fervently, and went on speaking :

" No one knew my embarrassments — I was deep in debt — in
danger of arrest — half mad. Like a coward, I fled, leaving the
woman I loved, unworthy, as I felt, of her affection, never meaning
her to see or hear of me again. When I came to my senses I shrank
from the farther crime which I had contemplated, but I had not the
courage to confess my faults. Better to seem dead and to be forgotten.
I thought that all had forgotten me until this morning ; but as I
stood, an hour ago, before the altar, near her whom I had left to
stand there in her forlorn girlhood alone, I heard a sigh — I caught a

glance Monica, tell me that they were for me — tell me tha.t you

had not forgotten me ! "

" No, Hector, I never forgot you," she answered firmly. " I
guessed your secret before I left England ; I recognised your hand-
writing, though it was cleverly disguised, when Kate showed me your
kind letter, and I wanted to assure you of my forgiveness before you
returned to Scotland. Believe me it is thorough and hearty."

" Then let us redeem the past," said Mr. Gilroy, still holding her
hand tightly. " My errand in Perthshire was to repair all WTongs,
and then to seek you out, and win you, though late in the day, to
share my fortune. Shall it be so, even now, and here, my dear
one ? "

He stooped down and kissed her, and she did not shrink from his
embrace.

Need I say that Uncle Hector did not secure his passage in the
homeward-bound ship ?

He and Aunt Monica were married before we left the colonial city,
and went to our country home, where after a while they followed us.
When we were all quite accustomed to this new life, and all business
matters arranged so that Hector could take his uncle's place, Mr.
Gilroy and his wife left us, and went to gladden 4heir own people in
the Strath and at the old Castle in the Highland Pass, returning
from time to time to visit us in our Transatlantic Paradise.

209

IN ■THE LOTUS-LAND.

By Charles W. Wood, F.R.G.S., Author of " Letters from
Majorca," "The Bretons at Home," etc., etc.

'YXTE have seen the
* * amazing differ-
ence existing between
the Alexandria of the
Ptolemies and the
Alexandria of to-day ;
a difference wider even
than the great gulf of
time separating the
ancient from the
modern city.

At the end of the
last century the decay
of Alexandria was
complete and deplor-
able. Ruin and misdty
met the traveller on
every side — the few
who then visited its
shores : for it is only in
comparatively recent
years that Egypt has become popular both with antiquarians and
tourists. Luxuries, the very barest comforts had disappeared, had
even ceased to be desired — for human nature soon gives up wishing
for the impossible. Miserable tenements now occupied the site of
former palaces and temples ; the howl of the jackal made night hideous.
The streets by day were a scene of refuse and rubbish. It seemed
impossible that Alexandria could ever recover herself. But it is the
impossible, as well as the unexpected, which so often happens.

We have seen how in the first centuries of this dispensation Chris-
tianity had spread over Alexandria and the Valley of the Nile. It has
been well said that Christianity was born in Palestine, but was
strengthened and established in Alexandria. The Egyptians were
essentially a serious and religious people : and they at once saw and
embraced the divine beauty of the new Revelation.

There was also much in it to remind them of their own mythological
creed, which had also been not without its beauty and fundamental
truths.

VOL. LIV. o

Ancient Egyptian Vase.

210 In the Lotus-Land.

Under the old religion there were cells in the Serapeum at Alex-
andria where people might withdraw from the world and live a life of
absolute solitude and seclusion. Again, penance was inflicted by the
priests for small sins — which seems to argue that confession existed —
and much of all this we see reproduced in the Roman Catholic creed.

It must also be remembered that, for Alexandria to embrace
Christianity as thoroughly and completely as she did, was the greatest
possible testimony to its truth and reality, the most complete earthly
triumph the religion of Christ had yet accomplished.

For Alexandria was at that time the most learned city of the world,
and her men were the rulers of thought, the greatest of philosophers,
with intellects penetrating and far-reaching ; the very first to discover
flaws in a new doctrine, the very last to embrace error. She had
numberless heathen philosophers ; and she had boasted of such men
as Clemens, Origen, and Athanasius, who had fought valiantly for the
truth. Had Alexandria retained her great men, the doctrines of
Mohammed would never have gained its hold upon the country, fiut
the glory of Alexandria had departed ; her learned men were silent in
the tomb ; the doors of her great academies were closed ; thought and
culture had already flown westward. Byzantium was waxing great.

That Alexandria fell away from her allegiance was no doubt partly
due to the struggles which Christianity had to encounter against
heathendom.

AVe can also see how such a doctrine as that of Christianity, with
all its power and all its beauty, so essentially a doctrine of peace, love,
and self-denial, would have a very hard fight with the fierce and fiery
Eastern races ; and that the people — in contradistinction to the learned
and refined few — would be very slowly affected and influenced by a
religion that must change their very nature if conscientiously followed.
Yet in the fourth century all Egypt was Christian. Julian the Apostate
had risen and fallen after vainly endeavouring to restore the worship
of the false gods. Christian churches were built ; there were many
patriarchs in the land. But dissensions immediately arose. The
harmony that ought to have existed was destroyed by quarrels about
forms and ceremonies and points of doctrine. Christ Himself had
said : " I have come, not to send peace but a sword upon the earth " ;
and from that day to this His words have been fulfilled.

Yet in those days there were the " few righteous men in Zoar " ;
the few who were the salt of the earth, obeying the Christian religion
to the letter.

No country in the fourth century possessed so many monastic
institutions as Egypt, and it was the handful of faithful men who
greatly helped to support them. Schism and persecution had both
paved the way for Mohammed, when in the year 2 o of the Hegira, the
city fell into the hands of the false prophet and his followers. The
Jews had all taken flight to the number of 70,000 ; but half
a million of inhabitants remained to offer their allegiance to the

In the LoUis-Land. 211

conqueror, and an amazing amount of wealth. The Christian churches
disappeared and mosques arose in their stead. A few Copts only
remained true to their belief.

The new people brought fresh energy into the country, and once
more everything flourished. Ostensibly this change for the better was
attributed to the new religion of Islam ; in reality it was due to the
new life, perseverance and determination which the Arabs brought
with them, and which replaced the indolence and expiring energies of
the people they conquered. It was then that Cairo sprang into
existence and gradually extinguished Alexandria.

Its present existence is another tribute to the wise judgment of
Alexander the Great, who, three hundred years before the Christian
era, foresaw all the possibilities of its situation. Like the Egyptian
Phoenix, Alexandria has indeed risen from her ashes, not after a lapse
of five hundred years, but after more than thrice that period of time.

And this is owing to its situation and to nothing else. Egypt herself
has contributed little or nothing to the present prosperity of the town.
It is a commercial prosperity alone, and it is due to the wealth and
traffic of all nations flowing into her ports. As in the days gone by,
so now, the ensigns of all countries may be seen flying in her harbours ;
and energy and life distinguish her quays. Her merchants bear with
them that well-to-do air which always accompanies success ; they envy
no man, and would change places with none.

It is always so in the early days of prosperity, the youth of a city
or a nation or an individual : and Modern Alexandria is still in the
early days of her youth. She will rise to greater heights than her
present success. Her people have not yet grown accustomed to the
new order of things. As wealth to the nouvemi riche, so their
prosperity is magnified and exalted by its freshness. This will give
them strength and impulse for greater efforts in the future.

Once more Alexandria may say of herself, as might have been said
of her in days of old : Nothing succeeds like success. The glory of
Ancient Alexandria has departed, and with it all her romance, all her
beauty ; everything that appealed to the imagination and the senses.
There is no longer a Bruchium ; the Royal Road has departed ; her
palaces and temples are no more ; her festival days are things of the
past ; the lavishness of a Cleopatra, the voluptuous idleness of an
Antony, all, all is over. A new order of things, and a more whole-
some, and probably a more lasting, has arisen.

Yet to the imagination, one's sense of the romantic, the contrast
is painful. Everything about Alexandria of to-day is so terribly
modern, so very ugly ; huge blocks of buildings that remind one of
the Paris of Hausmann more than anything else ; everywhere the
European element predominates ; only sundry names, and some of
the people you meet, and the language you hear spoken — only these
elements remind you that the Mediterranean flows between you and
Europe, and that you are verily and indeed in the Lotus-Land.

o 2

212 In the LoUis-Land.

We stayed in Alexandria the night, compelled to do so for want of
room in Cairo, though we should probably have done so in any case.
We did our best to get up a classic feeling in patrolling the streets.
Here once stood the Bruchium ; there was the Csesareum ; now we
halted upon the outlines of the once Royal Road ; here Antony and
Cleopatra had passed many and many a time to their barge, in all the
pomp of a royal progress, in days when pomp and wealth and progress
knew no bounds, and appetite was insatiable. We went out at night
and gazed upon the outlines of Pompey's Pillar, standing out clear
and dark, silent and solitary, against the starlit sky ; we gazed upon
the Arab cemetery at our feet, desolate and abandoned, looking more
like an antique ruin, where the " devastating dust " of the ages slept
in peace and neglect, than anything else we had seen ; we strolled to
the ruined forts and looked out upon the wide, dark waste of waters,
the beautiful waters of the blue Mediterranean.

But it was all of little use. We could not transport ourselves into
the past. Everything was too new, too modern, too realistic. Only
when we closed our eyes to present scenes, did those wonderful visions
of the days that had been, take firm hold of our imagination. Then
and then only were we once more in the past. Then and then only
were we assisting at a royal progress ; watching the ancient games,
gazing upon the dazzling palaces, inhaling the scent-laden air of the
wonderful gardens. With closed eyes we saw the marvellous beauty
of Cleopatra, and pitied Antony as well as blamed, for it must have
been hard indeed to resist such charms ; we heard her silvery tones
rising and falling in the rhythmic measures of the poets of the time ;
we did homage to all her surpassing grace : and we said. Could this
woman really have been dead to all the virtues — for is it not hard to
associate anything but beauty of spirit with gracefulness of form ?

But the indelible record remains ; we cannot blind ourselves to the
truth ; we may not put sweet for bitter and bitter for sweet.

And so at the end of the last century it seemed as if nothing could
raise Alexandria from her state of ruin and depression ; her misery
and poverty, her wretched huts, her despairing and desponding
population.

And yet within the last forty years — even within the last twenty-five
— she has risen — to quote the ubiquitous Phoenix once more — like
that wonderful bird, from her ashes, and in the most rapid and
marvellous manner has again become crowded with life and energy
and wealth. All the sounds and tokens of prosperity abound ; and
as far as human eye can see, this prosperity need never again
forsake her.

Never again need her streets become mere receptacles for her ashes,
or the melancholy howl of the jackal disturb the solemn repose of her
nights. New harbours have been constructed ; every modern appliance
and improvement has been given to the town ; aqueducts bring pure
water within the reach of all ; trees line her thoroughfares ; health has

214 ^^^ i^^ Lotus-Land.

become a first consideration. Egypt is growing rich ; may she not
once more become great ?

But the consequence of all this is that Alexandria is not Egypt, and
the Oriental influence is conspicuously absent from this new and
great commercial city.

So perhaps for some things it may be as well that not even a trace,
not even the atmosphere of Ancient Alexandria is to be found in the
Alexandria of to-day. Certainly it caused us, the morning after our
arrival, to leave it without regret, by the early train for Cairo.

The railway station was a scene of confusion. Porters and drago-
mans were tearing about as if they had suddenly gone insane. The
impulsiveness of the French and Italians is as nothing compared with
that of this people. Though we were tolerably early, almost every
seat in the train appeared taken. The passengers seemed of all
nations ; but the amiable trio we had met at breakfast the previous
morning were not of the number. They had " done " Egypt and the
Nile, and were now proceeding to Europe to " do " Italy. We saw
them no more until that memorable day — of which we have given the
record — when we were making our way from Naples to Rome.

The compartment we entered was almost full ; the occupants were
all Egyptian, or appeared so. Of the five persons, four seemed to
pay especial deference to the fifth. At that moment the station-master
came up, and with every mark of profound respect received some
peremptory order from the fifth traveller. An animated conversation
was going on between the occupants of which we understood not a
word. A few moments before the train started they all rose, and four
of them after ceremonious leave-takings, left the carriage. We were
alone with the fifth. The door was closed by the guard and locked.

As soon as the train was off, the fifth and remaining Alexandrian
put on a red fez, opened his bag, and brought out papers in all
languages, some of which he politely offered us, and proceeded to
make himself comfortable in his corner. He had dark, penetrating
eyes and a clear olive complexion. His features were good, and he
was decidedly handsome. " I am not an Alexandrian," he confided
to us, after we had entered into conversation — he spoke excellent
English — " but a Turk. I have just arrived from Constantinople, and
carry important diplomatic despatches to the Khedive. Those gentle-
men who were with me when you entered are Alexandrian friends. I
usually have a reserved carriage, but the train is much crowded, and
I was glad to make an exception in your favour," he added politely,
with a very winning smile. " To tell the truth, unless absorbed in
work, I would rather travel in the society of one or two whom I like,
than travel alone. But, as a rule, in these days of ' personally con-
ducted tours ' you run too great a risk."

" It was very good of you to take compassion upon us," we said,
"and makes all the difference to the comfort and pleasure of our
journey."

In the Lotus-Land. 215

" I should not have admitted every one," he laughed ; " but our
diplomatic profession teaches us to read people at a glance. We
never make mistakes. I fear I am growing too personal," he went
on, still laughing, " but, I hope, not rude and uncomplimentary. I
knew also, that elsewhere you would be very uncomfortable. The
officials here will not put on enough carriages ; they crowd people to
suffocation ; and Egypt was never so full of travellers."

" So much so, that we were told scarcely an hotel in Cairo has a
vacant room," we returned.

" That will not affect me," said our fellow-traveller, whom for con-
venience' sake we will call Osman, "for I have the honour of staying
with the Khedive."

^^'e were passing over the first railway ever constructed in the East.
Stephenson was the engineer, and it was finished in the year 1855 :
one of the quickest and cheapest lines ever built, in consequence of
the extreme flatness of the soil. It seemed singularly out of place
here, for no sooner were we out of Alexandria than we began to feel
the true Oriental influence about us.

Before the construction of the railroad, the highway to Cairo was
by the Mahmoudeeyah Canal : a longer but more picturesque route,
which few now think of attempting. It lay on our left as we
passed out of the station, and the barges with their sails set, going
up and down, looked wonderfully picturesque against the clear
Eastern sky.

For some distance, the gardens and habitations of the wealthy
merchants of Alexandria enlivened the banks : and here, in the after-
noon, is the fashionable promenade of Alexandria — its Hyde Park and
Rotten Row.

To our right stretched the waters of Lake Mareotis, a lake which
has played so great a part in the history and prosperity of the
Lotus-Land. Time was when its waters were crowded with shipping,
and on its banks bale after bale of the spices of Arabia sent forth
their rich perfume ; whilst the surrounding plain charmed the eye with
its luscious vineyards, and no feast was considered perfect, ungraced
by their famous wine. Strabo sings the praises of the lake, and
Horace, Virgil and Athenaeus all mention the overflowing of the Nile,
by which the vineyards became so luxuriant, the wine so famous.
These were not the days of total abstinence, and probably the spark-
ling cup appealed to those great minds as much as to their less gifted
brethren : though being great minds, they would no doubt be mode-
rate also. For them the midnight orgy and the draught too deep
would carry no temptation. This did not prevent them from singing
the praises of the vintage.

It has departed with those classic days. Egypt no longer yields
wine, excepting in small quantities. The little it does give is good,
or we thought it so. There are some ancient ruins near Lake
Mareotis, which are called Kuruin by the Arabs, the word meaning

2i6 In the Lohis-Land.

" vineyards ; " and the wine presses used by the ancient Egyptians,
hewn out of the rock, may still be seen.

The waters of the Lake had been gradually subsiding in the reign
of the Arabs ; but in 1801, during the siege of Alexandria, the English
cut through the neck of land lying between the lake and the sea, and
the whole of that fertile region was laid under water, whilst one
hundred and fifty villages were destroyed.

All this we soon passed, and for water we had only the flowing
Nile itself. It was picturesque with the barges that were going up
and down the stream, whilst every now and then long strings of
camels heavily laden gave the banks a distinctly Eastern aspect
curiously interesting to the unaccustomed eye. They walked in
defile one behind another with slow and measured step, as if to them
also life was very much of a burden. Seeing them thus, it was
difficult to imagine that they could rouse themselves to extraordinary
energy and fly faster than the wind over the boundless tracks of the
desert.

In passing through the Delta, the scenery is not very varied.
Flat, wide plains for the most part meet the eye, through which the
Nile takes its winding course. But these plains are fertile and yield
abundant harvests of grain and fruit and flowers, thanks to the over-
flowing of the river. Groups of fruit-laden palms rear their heads
against the background of the clear sky, and the tamarisk and syca-
more are seen in great beauty. In spite of an absence of startling
features, one felt distinctly in the East : and if at any moment there
was any danger of forgetting it, a string of patient, plodding, heavily-
laden camels wending their weary way along the banks of the river
would soon appear and bring back the wandering mind. Their
awkward, undulating motions look anything but agreeable, but
from a distance their quaint, unfamiliar outlines make them very
picturesque.

Occasionally also, stalking upon the banks of the river, or gazing
upon its reflection in a stagnant pool of the plain, we caught sight
of that singular bird, the Ibis. With its long legs, its curved bill, its
grave air of listening to sounds inaudible to mortal ears, no wonder
that it was considered sacred by the ancients, and carefully guarded
from all harm.

Besides the river, the Delta is intersected by many canals, for pur-
poses both of irrigation and navigation. These remind one somewhat
of the Dykes of Holland, though they are on a much larger and
more important scale : for the Dutch dykes fulfil only the one object.
Here the cotton plant grows in abundance, and is one of the chief
articles of industry and commerce. It fills up the landscape and adds
to its beauty. Its blossoms are of different colours, red, white and
yellow, and in the distance look very much like endless plantations of
the wild rose.

One of the quaintest objects meeting the eye as the train passes

In the Loius-Land.

217

onwards is the waterwhccl. These wheels flourish in great numbers
and in all i)arts. They are turned by buffaloes and donkeys ; for

the donkeys in the East only yield in usefulness to the camel. The
camel also takes his turn at the wheel, but his soft eye seems to pro-

2i8 In the Lotus-Land.

test against being put to such base uses. These waterwheels with
the fellaheen and the young boys hovering about, scantily clad in
white garments, form very distinct pictures, and redeem the landscape
from a good deal that is monotonous.

Vineyards are not often seen, but where they exist they remind one
of the vineyards of Italy, for they are trained on very much the same
principle. The leaves spread themselves over trellis work, and for
long distances you have a brilliant green carpet suspended in mid-air
apparently by magic, whilst the fruit falls below in luscious bunches
of purple and green. But these vineyards are no longer a feature
of the Delta, and the wine-presses for the most part have rest from
their ancient labour.

We passed many villages along the line, as our express train rushed
onwards, and we thought nothing more curious. Most of them were
distinguished by a dull grey tone, which stood out in strange con-
trast with the surrounding country ; strange and sad, yet not
inharmonious.

It was difficult to imagine that they were human habitations.
Grey mounds, for the most part, with nothing but an opening to
admit people and daylight ; huts made of Nile mud ; overshadowed
here and there by the everlasting palm, the only visible object of
grace and beauty. The dovecots were occasionally in evidence, and
the pillar on which the master of the house takes his frequent
standing as lord of everything within the mud enclosures. These
huts, the system of life of the poor fellaheen, have been described
elsewhere. In their earliest years, when the energy of youth gilds the
world, and makes even hard work a luxury, they are happy and
contented ; but for them the grasshopper becomes a burden long
before its time, and the evil days come far too soon.

There are not many stations of importance lying between Alex-
andria and Cairo. Of these Damanhoor is one of the first.

It is a large town, in the very centre of the most fertile part of the
Delta, given up to cotton manufactories and agricultural interests.
Damanhoor looks for the most part like a large village, with its grey
mounds and shapeless mud huts, only varied by the small minarets
and cupolas of a Mussulman cemetery, looking quaint, picturesque
and Eastern. It was near here that Napoleon almost fell into the
hands of the Mamelukes in 1798, through imprudently venturing
within their boundaries. " I tell you it is not written above that I
am to fall into the hands of the Mamelukes," he exclaimed to one of
his generals : " into the hands of the English — a la bo7ine heure.^''
Was the prophecy spoken in a spirit of bravado ; or was there within
him some unconscious foreshadowing of the time to come ? The day
dawned, at any rate, when he remembered the words with an anguish
that proved his deathblow.

It was market day at Damanhoor — their small market : the larger
one is on Sundays — and the station was thronged with a motley

In the LoUcS'Land.

219

The Ibis.

220 In the Lotus-Land,

crowd. Sellers of oranges were crying their goods with their peculiar
Eastern intonation, and water-carriers were going about with their
goat-skins, w^hilst others were offering something stronger than water
for sale, and found ready customers. It was a singular scene. Men
strong and swarthy were hustling each other in their loose white
abbas, whilst above their dark faces and flashing eyes the turban
stood in strong contrast with the brown animated countenances.
The day was brilliant, intensely hot, and their various fruits and
sparkling water looked refreshing and were in constant request as
long as the train halted. For ourselves it was impossible to attempt
to touch anything that had come into close contact with these natives.

" And one never grows used to it," said Osman. " Though I have
lived so much amongst them, I can touch nothing that I have seen
them handle. If I passed through my own kitchens when dinner was
in preparation, I should fast that day. My early life was spent in a
Paris embassy and I cannot forget the white faces and fair hands of
my father's cooks. They spoilt me for this Oriental life ; not only in
that but in other ways also. Is it not a motley group ! " he cried,
looking out upon the restless crowd. " What rasping voices ; what
flashing eyes ! Yet how different from the crowd of a Paris or
London platform ! How much more interesting, how full of life and
colouring is this scene, compared with anything you would find in
London. This would drive some artists wild with delight, whilst the
English counterpart, with its riot and vulgarity, could raise no other
emotion than pain and horror. In themselves, too, these Orientals
have the advantage. Their lives are more simple, less stained by sin.
They have a deep consciousness of religion, and few amongst them
but are exact in their devotions. That alone is a great gain. Where
would you find it in London ? How often do the lower orders enter
a church, or give a passing thought to the account we must all face
at the last day ? "

"There is probably only too much truth in your remarks," we
returned. " Yet where our people do rise they rise to a height of
which these Egyptians have never dreamed. Christianity is as much
above all other religions as "

We hesitated, feeling that every man's creed, like his prejudices,
should be respected ; this was treading on delicate ground.

" I know what you would say," returned Osman ; " and you are
right. I am myself a Christian at heart, and recognize all the
sublime beauty and perfection of the creed. I often think of that
verse in the Bible and apply it to myself — where Naaman feels that
he has a difficult, and apparently insincere, part to play. ' When I
bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy
servant in this thing.' He did not ask with Pilate ' What is Truth ? '
for he felt it ; but prejudice and worldly interest compelled him,
against his conscience, to keep to his old form of worship. — We are
moving on at last,"

In the Lotus- Land. 221

The crowd slightly made way for the train ; a few passengers
scrambled hastily into their places ; we steamed away. Damanhoor,
rising upon its eminence, receded, soon leaving nothing visible but its
small minarets and cupolas standing in clear outline against the
bright Eastern sky.

The next station — at which we did not stop — was Teh el-Baroot,
near to which is the site of the Greek city Naucratis, founded 700
years ii.c, a city mentioned by Herodotus and Ptolemy. It was
once famous and flourishing, and had nearly 1000 years of prosperous
existence before it fell into ruin and decay. Alexandria had then
arisen, and everything gradually gave way to the city founded by the
great Macedonian. In those days all things paled before it and fell
into insignificance.

Soon after this we reached the Rosetta branch of the Nile, a wide,
magnificent arm of the river, crossed by a splendid bridge spanned by
twelve arches, and resting upon immense hollow pillars of cast iron : a
gigantic work which cost nearly half a million of money. Until it
was made, trains were ferried over, but the system was dangerous.
Here in 1856 Achmet Pasha, the heir to the Viceroyalty, was
drowned. The ferry-boat was out of its place, and the driver, not
perceiving this in the darkness, ran the train into the river.

" It was a terrible catastrophe," said Osman. " One of those
incidents in which you Christians w^ould see the hand of Providence,
we the finger of a malignant Fate. At any rate, it is one of those
events which change the destiny of a country. Egypt has done so
well under the present Khedive, that one wonders whether he was not
always predestined to the position."

The train stopped on the other side the bridge at Kafr es-Zyat, and
here one enters into the true Delta, that portion of it lying between
the two great branches of the Nile. Nothing is more imposing than
this endless plain, with its rich and abundant fertility. The industry
of the Fellahs is beyond praise. Idleness is unknown. Every man
has a task to fulfil, and does it to the best of his power. Here,
indeed, he " goes forth to his work until the evening," and then has
well earned his rest. Villages of mud huts, small towns built of more
enduring stone, are scattered about, but so rarely that the immense
plain resembles a vast, unbroken, cultivated field. And perhaps
many of the villages would escape observation if it were not for the
groups of palm-trees which almost invariably overshadow them, and
relieve the landscape from its endless monotony. It is impossible
not to recur over and over again to these palm-trees, and thus bring
before the reader's mental vision the dominating, almost the only
feature of prominence in so many of these stretches of Eastern
landscape.

Not far from Kafr es-Zyat are the ruins of ancient Sais : consisting
to-day of fragments of houses, broken monoliths, blocks of stone,
and the remains of a gigantic town wall ; yet once so flourishing and

222 In the Lotus-Land.

famous. It was the capital of the Saite and other dynasties, and
was in its glory about 700 years before the Christian era. The god-
dess of the town was Neith, the Minerva of the Greeks, whom the
Egyptians represented sometimes with a shuttle on her head, sometimes
with the crown of Lower Egypt, holding the sceptre in her left hand,
and in her right hand the symbol which some consider to be a Cross,
others the Key of the Gates of Life. Athens itself is supposed to
have been founded by a colony of Saites, who introduced into Greece
the worship of Minerva.

The Temple of Neith, an immense and magnificent building, was
the burial-place of the Saite kings, and Herodotus makes special
mention of the tombs of Apries and Amasis. The temple was of
almost unparalleled splendour, with magnificent avenues guarded by
colossal sphinxes with human heads. These were sculptured from
blocks of granite brought from the quarries of Assouan, distant a forty
days' journey from Sais. Nothing seemed too gigantic in the way of
labour and enterprise for this wonderful people. The most remarkable
monument was an enormous monolith brought from the Island of
Elephantine, in the Upper Nile ; the transport occupying three thousand
men three years. The mind shrinks from comparing the giants of
those early days with the highest modern achievements. We stand
amazed even before the French cathedrals of the middle and earlier
ages j but what are even these monuments, matchless and beautiful as
they are, compared with the labours of the Egyptians ? Yet even
those days were not free from error and accident. At the moment
that the monolith was being raised into the interior of the temple, it
fell and crushed beneath it all the workmen engaged in the task.
Amasis looked upon this accident as an evil omen, and the monu-
ment was finally erected outside the temple.

Behind the Temple, according to Herodotus, was the tomb of Osiris.

" We are here on classic ground," said Osman. " For ages this
part of the Delta has been the most fertile portion of Egypt, con-
tributing largely to her wealth, industry, and comfort ; it is crowded
with historical interest ; whilst in its neighbourhood are many of the
most famous of the Egyptian ruins. The whole country is a study
and an experience from the hour you land in Alexandria to the
moment when, standing upon the Rock of Abooseer, you look down
upon the long stretch of falls and rapids forming the Second Cataract,
and admire the wide-spreading waters of the Nile. If this is your
first visit to Egypt, I envy you your pleasures and delights."

" Unfortunately, our time is limited," we replied. " We shall see
neither the First nor the Second Cataract."

"That is a pity," returned Osman. "Yet it is a little late to do the
Nile. And it is most unpleasantly crowded. These crowds take the
charm and romance out of everything."

" You have done it all," we said, more in the light of a remark than
a question.

In the Lotus-Land,

223

"Years and years ago," he replied smiling; "and more than once.
I have been four times up the Nile to the Second Cataract, and I
could go four times more. There is no voyage so interesting, so full
of charm and repose, and therefore so health-restoring. Whilst
Europe is shivering in the rude embrace of east winds and ice-bound
waters, you are breathing the softiest, balmiest, most life-giving airs.

(A
W

O
-1

t3

O
h-1

Of course the voyage was made in our own dahabeeyah. Those were
the days for travelling. We never encountered, never dreamed of the
possibility of such crowds as now drive one frantic, and almost
compel one to remain at home. And for this your great organizers
of tours are chiefly responsible. They may have conferred a benefit
upon the many, but have ruined travelling for the few."

2^4 -^^ th^ LoUis-Land,

" And this year, unfortunately, the crowd seems worse than ever,"
we said.

" Much worse," returned Osman. " It is more than a nuisance —
it is a plague. Amongst ourselves we call it a modern Plague of
Egypt. The winters in Europe are becoming so insupportable that
everyone is flocking to Cairo and the Nile. So you are on the whole
to be congratulated on not being able to do the Nile this year. But
you will return ; and if you take the first of the season instead of the
last, you will do well."

The train was making way through the fertile Delta. Our fellow
traveller, who seemed acquainted with every inch of the ground,
pointed out villages and knew them all by name, indicated roads
that Jed to far-off famous ruins, and had an adventure or an
anecdote to fit in with every fresh curve or winding of the Nile.

Presently we reached Tanta, the most important town in the Delta.
Above and beyond the station rose the octagonal minaret and graceful
dome of the Mosque of Sayyed el-Bedawee. The town possesses its
long streets of bazaars, a palace of the Khedive, and every modern
improvement. The station, like that of Damanhoor, was crowded with
a restless throng, some of them selling fruit and water, but the greater
number standing in apparent idleness and curiosity. Nevertheless
it was an animated and interesting scene.

"But this is nothing," remarked Osman. "The time to visit Tanta
is in April, at the greatest of its three fairs. You will then see a
strange sight : the gathering together of specimens of all the tribes of
Egypt, who meet to do honour to El-Bedawee, the most popular of
all the Mussulman saints."

" We never heard of him," we said, frankly confessing our
ignorance.

" Probably not," laughed Osman ; " he does not appear on the
Christian Calendar. All the same, I believe he was a good man.
What he did I can hardly tell you. He was born about the year
1 200 — 596 of the Hegira — at Fez in Morocco, but in his early days
was wild and unsettled. Then, as is sometimes the case, a sudden
change came over him ; he abandoned his wild life, and grew full of
the fire of devotion. He fell into swoons and ecstasies, saw visions,
and for hours would remain wrapped in a religious contemplation
from which nothing could rouse him. He is said to have performed
miracles, but these may have been merely the faith-healing evidences
of which we hear something in these days ; or it may be that Provi-
dence even at that age occasionally permitted a manifestation of this
divine power through man : the latter receiving to some extent those
gifts which the Saviour of the world said went out ' through prayer
and fasting.' For in thinking over these matters, as I do, it some-
times appears to me that man has gradually withdrawn from God, not
God from man ; and that to a chosen few the close relationship of
those early days is still permitted."

In the Lotus- Land.

225

" It may be so," we replied. " There is a good deal to uphold
your view, and nothing to prove to the contrary. And so Ahmed
el-Bedawee became a saint, and then the people venerated him, and
now they worship at his tomb ? "

" Yes. His influence over others was unbounded. In person he
was tall and powerful and extremely handsome ; but from fasting he
became almost cadaverous, and very little of his face was visible
excepting two black piercing eyes. The Bedaween still wear these
face cloths. His life was one of stern self-denial. He went about
not seeking his own glorification, but endeavouring to do good to his

A Seller of Date-Bread.

fellow mortals. Honour was thrust upon him ; he did not seek it.
He died full of age and honour. Such is the tradition handed
down of the life of this man ; and it seems to me that no Christian
could desire a better record, whilst very few, excepting the Apostles,
have attained to as much. The people now pray to him, and perhaps
he himself, from the light of the other world, would be the first to
reprove them. At the call to prayer proclaimed by the Muezzin
before daybreak from the lofty minaret, he is invoked as Supreme
Sheykh of the Arabs. In any great calamity — storms, inundations,
riots, and so forth, his aid is again invoked. Ya Sayyed, Ya Beda-

VOL. LIV. > p

226 In the Lotus-Land.

wee ! you may hear repeated a thousand times ; for hke the heathen
of old praying to Baal, they think they will be heard for their much
speaking."

" You seem to have studied the Bible, although you are not a
Christian," we observed.

He smiled somewhat sadly.

" In outward profession I am not," he replied, " but at heart I believe
that I am a Christian if I am anything. I was born Mohammedan,
but can any one of sense and learning compare the two creeds for a
moment ? Are you not convinced that the one is of divine origin and
revelation, whilst the other is full of earthly flaws. What human
intellect could have conceived the doctrine of Christianity ? "

" But if you believe this, how can you remain Mohammedan ? " we
asked ; for there was something about our fellow traveller that invited
confidence and permitted a certain familiar questioning.

" How could Naaman remain outwardly a heathen, or Agrippa
resist Paul's pleading? " returned Osman. " Why will a man put off
making his will until he is on his deathbed and his powers are failing ?
In my case there is the strong bond of habit to be finally broken and
thrown aside ; the traditions of childhood and youth. If I publicly
■renounced Mohammedanism and embraced Christianity I should have
to give up all diplomatic work. It would make no difference to my
mere worldly condition : I live in a palace now, I should live in a
palace then : I am not influenced by such vulgar considerations as
these ; but Othello's occupation would be gone, and my heart is
very much in my work."

" Yet life is fleeting, and you would more than gain by the ex-
change."

" I feel it and know it," he returned ; " and one day I shall have
the courage of my convictions. Perhaps at your next visit to Cairo I
shall be able to accompany you to your church as one of yourselves.
I go even now sometimes, but I feel outside the pale. Yet who
would not go to hear the quiet, convincing preaching of" the Dean, so
full of charm and beauty ? "

Once more the train moved on. The crowd suddenly hushed its
noisy chatter. The idle ones turned to dispose of themselves and
their elegant leisure elsewhere ; perhaps to wait until another train
brought them a fresh source of excitement. The dark flashing eyes
and open mouths of the fruit and water sellers, so animated a moment
ago, sank back into listless apathy and repose. There was no inter-
mediate stage ; the change was not gradual but sudden. The dome
and minaret of the mosque of Bedawee were beautiful and graceful
objects, outlined against the clear Eastern sky.

" Not far from the mosque is the market," said Osman, " and like
all the principal markets in Egypt, it is a curious and lively scene.
Every tribe is represented. Men and women in the scantiest and
coolest apparel are plying their trades. Here you will see one with a

In the Lotus- Land. 227

pitcher gracefully poised upon her head, its dark red or clay colour
contrasting with the black head and eyes and glistening teeth beneath.
Sugar-cane sellers squat upon the ground, and snake-charmers are
doing their best to extract money from the strangers who may be
present. The whole scene is a medley of dilapidated stalls and
camels ; a restless noisy crowd, all trying to outsell each other ; but
all for the most part friendly and good-tempered."

" But is it possible that these fiery-looking Arabs never fight and
quarrel ? " asked H.

" Frays and fightings do happen amongst these hot-blooded
people, and at one time they threatened to become so serious
as to put an end to the pilgrimage," returned Osman ; " but in
this respect they have improved, and such passionate rows and
disputings as one constantly sees in Tangiers, for instance, and other
parts of Morocco, I have seldom witnessed in Egypt. The people
have a good deal of consideration for each other, the strong for the
weak, the young for the old."

" Have you been here at their great festivals ? " said H.

" You allude to the fairs : but their greatest festival is the birthday
of the Saint. I was once present at it, and I hope never to be present
again. The tomb of el-Bedawee is close to the mosque — a very ugly
mosque, by the way ; not half as good and interesting as the more
ancient schools belonging to it — and to this tomb thousands of
people make a pilgrimage. At times as many as half a million, it is
said, visit the town. Imagine what that means to a place possessing
about 60,000 inhabitants on ordinary occasions ! I almost died of
suffocation. Yet the whole thing is so interesting from a picturesque
point of view that every one should see it once."

" Do they perform their pilgrimages in the same spirit as the Roman
Catholics ? " we asked.

" Not altogether," replied Osman. " The Roman Cathohc pil-
grimages are purely devotional ; here the pilgrims combine business
with religion. Their creed permits them to turn to worldly matters
when their visit to the shrine is over. The Roman Catholic pil-
grimage is chiefly propitiatory, the Mohammedan is often nothing but
an act of homage. You will not find cripples here hobbling up on
their crutches, and expecting to return without them."

" Yet they must expect to get something out of their pilgrimage ? "
said H. " And do they not believe in miracles at all ? "

" Two questions at once," laughed Osman. " I will reply to the
first. In visiting the shrine of the Saint, they certainly expect a good
deal. They think he has great influence upon their lives and can
give or withhold prosperity. This he bestows chiefly on those who
visit his tomb. Ah, you see how different is your creed, where the
sun shines on the evil and on the good, and the rain falls on the just
and on the unjust."

" True ; but we believe that good will be rewarded and sin

p 2

228 In the Lotiis-Land.

punished. In fact, do we not see every day that ' the way of trans-
gressors is hard ? ' "

" Of course ; but what I wish to emphasise is that the Protestant
creed is essentially one of long-suffering and loving-kindness, whilst
all other creeds depend chiefly upon good works. As to miracles,
the Mohammedans believe in them to a certain extent, but they do
not believe that a pilgrimage would restore a withered limb or heal a
mortal disease. The priesthood have not a very superstitious hold
upon the people, who are treated as beings possessing a little judg-
ment and common sense. I fear it is often very little indeed," he
laughed.

" But they evidently have both faith and fervour."

" Very much so," returned Osman. " And even the fanaticism of
the past ages has not died out. I have watched them worshipping at
the shrine of Ahmed el-Bedawee and many of their faces have worn
a look of complete ecstasy ; not the mad delirium of the howling
Dervishes which is an effect purely physical, but the expression of a
soul wrapped in the highest religious devotion."

" In speaking you seem to place yourself outside all this," we said.
" The very turn of your phrases proves that you are no Mohammedan
at heart."

" I have already said so," replied Osman, rather, sadly. " And if
we continue our religious discussion you will rouse my conscience,
and I shall not be able to put off my conversion to a more convenient
seasop ! "

" Could anything better happen to you ? "

He shook his head.

" Have patience," he replied. " I believe I shall be permitted to
live until the day when I can outwardly declare my conversion. I am
half way on my road. Already I am not like Naaman ; I no longer
' bow down in the house of Rimmon ; ' I have ceased all religious
forms and observances as far as Mohammed is concerned. So far
I am not insincere. See, we are getting over the ground."

AVe had been rushing through the plains of the Delta, which seldom
varied in their fertility. Crossing a wide bridge, over the second arm
of the Nile, the train immediately stopped at Benha el-Assal, one of
the chief stations on the line.

" ' The town of honey,' " said Osman. " Honey is the great
commerce of this place. It sends it all over the world ; and its
oranges and mandarins are some of the best in Egypt. Not far from
here are the ruins of Athribis, one of the great towns of the Delta in
the fourth century."

" Are they worth visiting ? " asked H.

" Scarcely," replied Osman, " in comparison with all the ruins one
finds higher up the Nile, though the original town seems to have
existed in the days of the Pharaohs. The ruins are nothing more
than heaps of rubbish, in which one can just distinguish some of the

<

Q

w

230 In the Lotus-Land.

ancient outlines. Greek and Roman remains have been found here,
amongst them a bust of red porphyry of a Roman emperor and a
stone with a Greek inscription, now in the Boulak ^Museum, You will
find that Museum intensely interesting ; it is full of treasures of the
past ; and if you care for antiquarian studies and collections, you
might spend weeks lost in a dream of the days gone by. The building
itself is magnificent, and everything in it is splendidly arranged and
classified."

We were now not very far from Cairo, and soon the distant out-
lines of the Pyramids would be visible. A certain excitement took
possession of us as we felt we were about to behold for the first time
these most ancient monuments of the world ; should gaze upon the
domes and minarets of the city whose foundations were laid by
Cambyses.

" I can well enter into your emotions," said Osman. " Young as
I was when I first visited Cairo — I had not quite reached the age of
nineteen — I remember that I could not keep my seat, whilst I thought
the train would never reach its destination. My father was with me,
and laughed at my eagerness, and could not understand it. Even then,
ancient history, all that belonged to the past, interested me more than
any other subject ; but my father was essentially practical and un-
romantic ; all his gigantic mind was absorbed in the present. The
successful carrying out of a diplomatic mission was worth far more to
him than all the antiquities ever discovered. Now I hold diplomacy
to be the most interesting life any one can adopt, but it does not
prevent a very large portion of my heart from being amongst the ruins
and remains of Ancient Egypt. See there."

He pointed to the distance. We had just steamed past the station
of Toukh and the far-off outlines of the Pyramids were visible.
Behind them rose the Libyan hills, whilst to the east we traced the
undulations of the Mokattam or Arabian chain. We were too distant
to form any estimate of the size of the Pyramids, but at a first glance
we felt a little disappointed.

" It is always so," said Osman. " You have heard too much about
them, and imagination is unbounded in her pictures. We always
fancy things immeasurably beyond what they really are or can be.
You will at first be disappointed even in a close view of the Pyramids ;
but they wdll grow upon you until at last you will form a true estimate
of their immense size and grandeur. There you see the towers of the
Barrage."

Two brick towers of modern construction were just visible. The
Barrage is a wonderful work, of which the first stone was laid in 1835
by Mohammed Ali. Its object was to keep the waters of the Nile at
the same level throughout the year, thus giving greater fertility to the
Delta and decreasing the cost of labour and irrigation. From defective
architecture the work proved unsuccessful, and for many years the
Barrage did more harm than good ; but engineering changes have

In the Lotus-Land. 231

been introduced, and in time to come its object may be completely
fulfilled.

And now one object after another began to come into prominence.
Upon the Mokattam hills uprose the citadel, and behind it, a land-
mark for the whole country round, the wonderful though modern
mosque of Mohammed Ali, with its minarets, so tall and slender that
you would think the first strong gale must bring them down. Yet
they will doubtless weather many a storm and see out many a
generation.

As we approached Cairo, the scene altered. The long sweep of
country, the fertile plains of the Delta, were exchanged for cultivated
gardens and magnificent residences, conspicuous amongst them the
palace of Shoobra with its wonderful avenue of sycamores.

" And there," said Osman, pointing to the left, " lie the ruins of
Heliopolis, though its solitary obelisk is not visible from the train.
You will visit it one day, and the ostrich farm not far from it
And now my work commences. The Khedive awaits me anxiously ;
I must repair at once to the palace."

" Do you make a long stay in Cairo ? " we asked.

" Exactly one week ; then back to Constantinople. The Khedive
is as amiable as he is talented. Have you ever been introduced to him
— in England or elsewhere ? If not I am sure I might venture to
present you, if you cared for the honour. He is very fond of the
English, and in many ways is high and noble minded. No one
knows him better than I. But we shall meet again in Cairo. Here
we are at last. Did you ever see such a scene of confusion ? "

It was indeed almost a tumult : dragomans, drivers, hotel com-
missionaires, all apparently in the greatest state of excitement, ready
to tear each other to pieces in their eagerness to secure passengers.

We had engaged Aleck for a week as our dragoman, and he had
gone before us by the night train, in order to meet us on our arrival.
There he stood, amongst the crush, tall, dark, swarthy, ready to
knock down any dozen people who stood in his way. As soon as he
caught sight of us, he simply plunged through the crowd, scattering it
right and left ; and in a few moments, and in some magical way
never quite understood, we found ourselves without the station, driving
rapidly into the far-famed City of the Pyramids.

232

SONG OF THE SEASONS.

Sing ! sing of the birth of Spring,

Bluebells, and violets, and may !
Pale sweet primroses blossoming

Down in the leafy way —
Dreams and hopes as light as the bloom

Drifted on orchard grass —
Spring ! re-risen from winter's tomb —

Spring that must die, alas !

Sing of Summer, a splendid song,

Summer royally fair —
When nights are white, and days arc long,

And the jasmine scents the air.
When the nightingales sing of love.

And the red red roses blow —
These are the notes to make music of I

Ah, that Summer must go !

Make a song for the Autumn pale !

Gather the dead red leaves.
Catch the sob of the winds that wail

Over the lost gold sheaves.
Weave them into a song that sighs

Over the days gone by —
Sing to silence the heart that cries

" Even Autumn must die ! "

Sing of the Winter ! of ice and snow.

Woodlands dreary and bare.
Haunted by ghosts of flowers that will blow
When the Spring shall be there !
" When the Spring shall be there ! " At last
Joy through the song rings clear ;
Winter too shall be over and past —
Past — and the Spring be here !

E. Nesbit.

233

A FALSE ALARM.
L

TT was a wet autumn day. Since early morning the rain had been
•^ beating against the stone mullioned windows of Rawnsley Grange
with unrelenting fury. The wind was howling down the chimney
and under the ill-fitting old doors with a sound suggestive of the
depth of winter.

" If this goes on much longer I shall commit suicide ! " exclaimed
Mrs. Rawnsley, looking out of window for the tenth time in the vain
hope of seeing a break in the clouds. She was young, and very
pretty, though at the present moment her eyes were full of tears, and
her whole person expressive of the deepest dejection. A stranger
might have imagined that she was the victim of a life-long sorrow,
but in reality her depression was entirely due to the fact that she had
passed a very wet morning by herself.

" What can that be ? Surely I heard the sound of wheels ? " she
cried suddenly. " Robert must have changed his mind again and
come home ! What can have happened ? "

Mrs. Rawnsley hurried into the hall just as a shabby old fly drove
up to the door. A gentleman enveloped in a heavy fur coat jumped
out and rang the bell. She stopped on seeing that the new arrival
was not her husband, and was retreating towards the drawing-room,
when she was arrested by the sound of a well-known voice.

" Phil ! " she cried, running forward with outstretched hands, " I
can't believe my eyes ! Why I thought you were in Paris ! "

" So I shall be to-morrow," replied the young man, who with the
help of the servant was struggling out of his many wraps. " I only
came over to England on business, and finding that I had to wait a
short time at Bogford I took a cab and drove over to see you for
half an hour."

" Half an hour ! " reiterated Mrs. Rawnsley blankly ; " why I
hoped you had come on a visit."

" Very kind of you, my dear Isabel, but it is quite impossible !
My work compels me to be in Paris to-morrow evening at the latest."

Then they both burst out laughing. Mr. Philip Digby was
attached to the British Embassy in Paris, and at one time his duties
had appeared mainly to consist in escorting his pretty cousin Isabel
to balls, and providing her with the most splendid bouquets that
could be procured for money. But a great many things had
happened since then.

" Do you know I have not seen you since your wedding-day ? "
observed Mr. Digby, as he carefully selected the largest and softest
armchair and drew it close to the drawing-room fire. " I suppose

234 ^ False Alarm.

you have forgotten that winter in Paris ? Why, it must be nearly
two years ago ! "

My dear boy ! I have forgotten nothing that happened during
that dehghtful time. Ah ! that is the place to enjoy oneself ! " and
Mrs. Rawnsley sighed softly. Although married to a man she adored,
and mistress of a charming old manor-house within a mile of the
most desirable cathedral town in England, she still looked back to
the old Paris days with a faint tinge of regret. There were un-
doubtedly solid advantages about the present, but it lacked the
merriment of the past.

" Now don't waste time," she continued, " but tell me about all
our friends. First of all, who has succeeded to my place in your
affections ? "

" Ah ! that w^ould be too long a story ! You have had so many
successors ! But I will do my best to give you a sketch of my latest
conquests," said Mr. Digby, twisting up his little black moustache.
He was very handsome in a miniature style and deliberately affected
a self-complacent manner which some people declared intolerable.

Half an hour was gone long before the cousins had exhausted their
numerous topics of interest. Suddenly Phil looked at his watch and
jumped up with an expression of annoyance.

" I shall miss my train, if I don't look out," he said, " for that old
horse goes like a snail. Good-bye, my dear Isabel. So glad to have
seen you installed in your home. Very nice for those who like old
oak wainscotings and lattice windows. I can't stand them myself, but
I believe I am peculiar. By-the-bye is Rawnsley about ? Perhaps it
would be civil to tell him I'm here ! "

" He is away," said Isabel, stiffly.

Mr. Digby responded to this announcement with a little gesture of
amusement.

" How long have you been married ? More than a year ? A bit
tired of it at times, arn't you ? I know I should be, so I leave well
alone. Here — you must see me off at the door; it's the least you
can do when I have come all this way to see you. Beastly climate,
isn't it ? You had better follow me back to Paris and make acquain-
tance with the sun again."

" I wish I could," sighed Mrs. Rawnsley ; " but I am afraid it is
impossible."

" Oh, I don't know ; stranger things have happened. Mind, I
shall be only too happy if at any time you ca?i manage it," said Phil,
carefully lighting his cigar before stepping into the fly. In another
moment he was out of sight.

II.

The empty drawing-room looked more dreary than ever when Isabel
returned to it alone. She sank down on the sofa with a groan of utter
weariness, and buried her face in her hands. However, hardly had

A False Alarm. 235

she settled herself to cry comfortably, when the door burst open, and
in rushed a girl in a dripping waterproof.

" My dear Isabel ! What are you doing ? " she panted, pulling off
her wet gloves and throwing her cloak in a heap on the floor. " I do
believe you have been crying ! No wonder, left all by yourself in this
miserable weather. I call it a horrid shame of your husband to go
away like this ! I know I wouldn't stand it ! "

Miss Julia Grant was a very downright young woman, and prided
herself on speaking out her mind without any regard to convention-
alities. At one time she and Isabel had been inseparable companions,
but the marriage of the latter had produced a slight breach in their
friendship, although they lived at no great distance apart. Mr.
Rawnsley was many years older than his wife, and a man of quiet
literary tastes. From the first he had taken great exception to Miss
Grant's manners, his enmity dating from his wedding-day, when she
had playfully slapped him on the back coming out of church. It was
one of Julia's little failings that she never could quite discern who
appreciated these light-hearted habits and who regarded them with
intense aversion.

"Well, my dear Isabel," she continued, throwing herself into the
armchair lately vacated by Mr. Digby, and planting two dripping boots
on the brightly-polished fender, " you don't look very festive, I must
say ! Evidently you are feeling thoroughly low by yourself in this
wretched weather. Now I have a capital plan to propose. We came
into Bogford by train this morning, as the horse was lame. Mamma
was going to lunch at the Deanery and pay calls all the afternoon, so
I just ate a bun at the pastrycook's and walked off to see you."

" You walked in all this rain ! " interrupted Mrs. Rawnsley, with
astonishment.

" Yes — don't I look like it ? " replied Julia, glancing down at her
steaming boots. " Well, I can't stop long ; I'm in a desperate hurry
— in fact, I ran most of the way, and didn't even wait to ring the
door-bell. I want you to come back with us this evening and stay a
couple of days, to help in some theatricals we are getting up in the
village — an impromptu affair, but it will be great fun, as we have lots
of jolly people coming. Now make up your mind at once ! It's
perfect nonsense moping here by yourself when your husband is
away ! "

" I should like it of all things," said Mrs. Rawnsley undecidedly ;
" only I don't quite know when Robert returns. I expected him to-
day, and then he sent a telegram to say he wasn't coming. He has
gone somewhere to consult some authority on something, and I don't
know how long it will take him."

" Surely he was away last time I came over ? " interposed Miss Grant.

" Ah, yes ! You know he is writing an encyclopaedia, or a dic-
tionary, or something of that kind, and all his time is taken up going
about verifying facts."

236 A False Alarm.

" Isabel," said Miss Grant, solemnly, " you're a fool ! "

Mrs. Rawnsley only smiled. She was too well-accustomed to her
friend's forcible language to take any offence.

" Yes,*' continued Julia, with great energy, " you are a perfect idiot
if you submit to being treated like this ! Just show your husband
that you intend to enjoy yourself, irrespective of him, and he will think
twice as much of you. Why, he was attentive enough when you were
first married, until he found out that you would stand any amount of
neglect. Now, take my advice for once ! Come and enjoy the
theatricals without bothering your head whether he comes home or
not. It will be a capital joke, and just give him a lesson ! He will
be more careful how long he leaves you alone another time."

" I hope I shan't make him angry," said Mrs. Rawnsley. " I
wouldn't do that for the world ! I know he doesn't mean to neglect
me. It's only that tiresome old book "

" Angry ! " interrupted Julia. " Well, if you are too afraid of him
for a little joke of that sort of course there's nothing more to be said.
But I didn't think he was such a tyrant as all that."

" Don't talk nonsense ! " replied Isabel hotly. " Of course I am
not afraid of him. I shall come to the theatricals — that's settled.
You are going back by the 5.20 train? I will meet you at the
station ; or rather, you had better wait and drive there with me."

" I can't do that," said Julia, tugging on her half-dry gloves. " I
must do a lot of shopping before I start, but I shall expect to see you
at the station. Mind, we shall never forgive you if you throw us over
at the last. No ! don't ring for the butler to let me out, I hate the
pompous old brute ! Here, this is the quickest way," and she threw
open the window and stepped out, regardless of her friend's cry of
dismay as all the small articles on the drawing-room table blew on to
the floor.

Left to herself, Isabel's courage rather failed her. It was the first
time that she had ever acted independently of her husband, for she
was devotedly attached to him, and inordinately proud of his literary
attainments — in spite of the disrespectful way in which she alluded to
them before Julia. She had never suspected before that she was in
the least to be pitied, and it was quite a new light to her that her
friends regarded her as a victim. The weather was intensely depressing,
and the sight of Philip had brought back a train of old associations.

" What a merry life it was in Paris ! " she thought, " and how I used
to be petted and spoilt ! No end to the pleasures and excitements of
those days ! Rather different from sitting all alone, hour after hour, in
this gloomy old house, with no companions but the mice scampering
about behind the wainscotings." The memory of the mice decided
her. " It's really too bad of Robert to leave me," she said. " I can't
stand another evening alone with the mice ! " And, ringing the bell,
she hurriedly ordered the carriage without allowing herself the time
to change her mind again.

A False Alarm. 237

III.

" Are we to expect you home to-morrow, ma'am ? " inquired the butler,
as he held open the carriage door. " And is there any message for
the master if he returns whilst you are out ? "

" No, none," said Mrs. Rawnsley shortly. " I may return to-morrow,
but it is improbable. To the station now," and she jumped into the
brougham and pulled up the window with childish petulance.

" Horrid old man ! " she thought ; " I won't gratify his curiosity to
know where I am going ! What a bore old family servants are !
They always seem to have an impression that they ought to be in-
formed of one's plans directly they are made. Stokes is always
interfering, and I really believe he has never forgiven me for destroying
the bachelor establishment over which he had presided for so many
years. As for leaving a message for Robert, I fondly hope he won't
be back before I am, and anyway it would rather annoy him to hear
that I had gone to the Grants'. He certainly is a little unreasonable
about poor Julia ! Of course she is rough, but how kind it was of
her to tramp all that way in the wet merely because she thought
I was lonely ! No ! I can't give up such an old friend just because
of Robert's fancies, and he will quite understand how the sudden
plan came about when I explain it to him myself. I daresay he
will think it an excellent joke ! "

Unfortunately, Mr. Rawnsley took quite a different view of the
case when he returned home on the following day. In vain he
looked in every direction, as he approached the house, expecting
to see his wife anxiously awaiting his return on the doorstep, as
she had invariably done on former occasions.

'' Where is your mistress, Stokes ? " he inquired as the old servant
took his hat in the hall. " She is quite well, I hope ? Nothing the
matter ? "

" Not that I know of, sir ! She left home yesterday."

" Left home ! " interrupted Mr. Rawnsley. " What do you mean ?
Where did she go ? "

" That's just what we none of us know, sir."

" But when does she return ? Surely she left some message for
me ? " said Mr. Rawnsley with growing anxiety.

" She left no message, sir, and didn't say anything about coming
back. She didn't even take the maid, and directly the porter took
out her luggage at the station she told the coachman to go home, so
he couldn't even see by what train "

" That will do," interrupted Mr. Rawnsley harshly ; " no doubt it's
all right, and she will be here presently. Dinner at eight, and don't
disturb me in the library until then unless your mistress arrives."

It is to be doubted whether Mr. Rawnsley accomplished much work
that afternoon, although he covered his writing-table with formidable
looking volumes and conscientiously tried to master their contents.

238 A False Alarm.

In spite of all his efforts to fix his attention, his eyes were perpetually
wandering to the face of the clock, his ears continually straining to
catch the sound of a light footstep that never came.

However he successfully dissembled his anxiety before the servants,
and when Stokes came to ask if dinner should be kept waiting, he
affected to look up from his book with a start, as if unconscious of
how the time had passed.

" I will have dinner at once. Your mistress must be coming by
the last train. Order the carriage to go down and meet it, and tell
the housekeeper to have something ready for her about eleven
o'clock," he said, speaking with more certainty than he felt. But on
no account would he have betrayed the slightest uneasiness about his
wife's movements.

" Besides she mi^sf be coming home to-night," he argued to himself,
" or she would have written to me. She may have left a note that
has been mislaid ; there is sure to be some very simple explanation
of it, after all."

When dinner was over he again made a pretence of continuing his
work in the library, but it was with difficulty that he could keep up
even a show of interest in his studies.

" It's strange how I miss Isabel's presence in the room," he
reflected. " There was a time when I could work so much better by
myself, and now I feel as if I could not settle to anything until I see
her there," and he glanced at a low chair by the side of the fire which
was his wife's favourite seat during the long evenings when he was
absorbed in his writing. Often he did not speak to her for hours,
and no one would ever have suspected how constantly his eyes rested
for a moment in admiration on the little golden head that nestled
back so gracefully amongst the cushions. Isabel herself always
believed that he forgot her very existence when occupied with his
books, but that, she imagined, was a penalty inseparable from
marrying a husband much cleverer than herself. And of course he
never undeceived her. It was enough to have electrified all his
friends by suddenly marrying a pretty child of twenty without making
himself still further ridiculous by an unlimited display of affection.
To do him justice he never suspected that Isabel would have pre-
ferred more demonstrative behaviour. She never complained of
feeling dull, and it struck Mr. Rawnsley for the first time that evening
that it must be rather dreary work for a young girl to sit alone night
after night, in that gloomy old house, when he was away from home.
He quite resolved to be more sociable in the future, to leave her less
to herself, if it were compatible with his other plans. And when she
came home — which would be very soon, for the mail was due in five
minutes — he would put away his books and try to take an interest in
what she had been doing. It was very inconsiderate of her not to be
there to meet him, but he would pass that over with the slightest
possible reproof in his pleasure at getting her safely back again.

A False Alarm. 239

So he fidgeted about the room, comparing his watch with the
clock, and referring anxiously to Bradshaw to be sure that there was
no mistake about the train, until at last it was impossible to buoy
himself up any longer with false hopes. The mail had gone up full
half-an-hour, the carriage had long since driven round to the stable
yard, and yet there were no signs of Isabel. A chill foreboding of
evil began to creep over him.

IV.

After a time the sound of shuffling footsteps and whispering voices
in the passage aroused Mr. Rawnsley from his melancholy reflections.
In the stillness of the night he could hear a muffled controversy going
on outside the door. He felt a conviction that he was about to
receive bad news, and, sitting down by the writing-table, he prepared
himself to hear the worst. There had been an accident, and Isabel
was killed. He felt as certain of it as if he had seen her dead body
lying before him. And, at the same moment, by a curious freak of
fancy, he remembered how lovely she had looked when he met her
for the first time at a ball to which he had been unwillingly persuaded
to go. How gracefully she danced, and how she enjoyed herself !
Her face had struck him as the very impersonation of childish mirth.
He had never seen her dance since — for they were married a few
weeks later — and he had made her clearly understand from the first
that his time was too valuable to be wasted in going to parties.

The door opened softly. Mr. Rawnsley looked up and saw Stokes
gliding forward with an air of suppressed excitement.

" The carriage went down to the station, sir," he began, " and there
was no one there. The coachman made inquiries, but nothing had
been seen of the mistress since she left. So when I heard that, I
talked it over with the housekeeper, and we both agreed that it was
my plain duty to tell you the truth. At least, in my opinion, it's
always a woman's place to break any bad news, but Mrs. Light seemed
to think it best for me to undertake it, having lived so long in the
family "

" Speak out at once ! " interrupted Mr. Rawnsley. " Say what has
happened and go ! "

The old man came a few steps nearer. His face was very pale,
but he was evidently taking a certain grim pleasure in having such an
unwonted opportunity of producing a sensation.

" Well then, sir," he began, " if you will have the truth, the mistress
has gone to Paris ! "

" To Paris ! " echoed Mr. Rawnsley, blankly. " What could she
want there? It's quite impossible that she would start on such a
long journey by herself ! "

" But you see, sir, there was the gentleman."

" What are you talking about, Stokes ? " said Mr. Rawnsley, sternly.

240 A False Alarm.

"You must be mad or drunk! There has been no gentleman
here."

" Indeed, then, there has ! " retorted the butler, casting aside all
reserve in his haste to vindicate his character. " Any of the servants
will tell you how a gentleman drove up to the door yesterday about
an hour after your telegram came. The mistress seemed wonderfully
pleased to see him — at least she ran out to the hall almost before he
was inside the door, so that it was easy to see she expected h^m.
And then they were very merry. Why, I could hear them laughing
whilst I was cleaning the plate in the pantry ! But when he came to
go it was a very different thing. She had her handkerchief up to her
eyes as she went back to the drawing-room ; I saw it myself ! "

Mr. Rawnsley was more than ever puzzled by this information.

" Who was the gentleman ? " he inquired, after a moment's thought.

" Well, indeed, sir, I can't tell ; for the mistress met him in the hall
before I had time to ask his name. But he was rather a foreign-
looking gentleman, with a little black moustache, and I believe she
called him Philip or "

" You can stop ! " thundered Mr. Rawnsley, suddenly. He re-
cognised the portrait at once. Nothing could have annoyed him
more than to hear of Philip Digby's presence in the neighbourhood.
He disliked him particularly, and always felt vaguely irritated at the
excellent terms on which he stood with Isabel. It was simply wonder-
ful how she could tolerate such a young man — the very antipodes of
her husband.

"But why do you tell me all this rubbish ? " he continued irritably.
" I don't want to be disturbed at this time of night with long stories
about strange gentlemen. It doesn't concern me in the least."

" It does indeed, sir ! It goes to my heart to tell you, but the
truth is sure to come out. She has gone off with him ! "

The old man paused, expecting an outburst of rage at this announce-
ment. Finding his master remained quite silent he continued with
apologetic eagerness :

" I ought to have told you before, sir, but I was afraid, and that's
the truth. First, I noticed how sad she seemed at his going, and
then I made a pretence of finding the carriage rug when they were
parting in the hall, and I heard her promise to follow him to Paris as
soon as she could get ready — that I'm ready to swear to. And then
when she ordered the carriage and started off without her maid, and
wouldn't leave any message with me — why then I went to the house-
keeper and "

" Stop ! " interrupted Mr. Rawnsley, in a voice that caused the
butler involuntarily to retire towards the door. " No more of these
lies. You leave my house at once, and never let me see you again.
Go!"

As he spoke he started up with such a menacing gesture that Stokes
turned and fled without venturing another word.

A False Alarm. 241

When the door closed behind him, Mr. Rawnsley sank down in his
chair. For some time he was too confused to be able to think clearly
over what he had heard.

" How is this ? " he exclaimed at last with a forced laugh. " I must
be labouring under some delusion to attach any importance to the
spiteful words of a jealous old servant, and yet, what can have become
of Isabel ? She must have left some message for me. It is too
strange that she should have gone aw^ay without a word ! "

He walked uneasily up and down the room several times, trying to
hit on some satisfactory solution of the mystery. Presently he stopped
in front of his wife's work-table and opened the drawer thinking it
possible that he might come across something that would give him a
clue to her movements. The first thing he took out was a French
novel with Philip Digby's name scribbled on the cover. A piece of
paper was stuck between the pages as a marker. He tore it hastily
out ; it was only an empty envelope with the Paris postmark.

With a smothered imprecation he dashed the book and paper on
the floor and resumed his weary walk.

" x^h, it's all very well for the master to talk about lies," Stokes was
at that moment saying to a sympathetic circle in the housekeeper's
room, " but he wouldn't be half so angry if he thought they really
were lies ! "

V.

The Grants' theatricals were great fun — such fun that Isabel felt com-
pelled to stay for the second night's performance which was to be
followed by a dance. Once away from the depressing, atmosphere of
Rawnsley Grange her spirits rapidly rose, and she soon forgot all her
former scruples.

" After all," as she said to Julia, " it's Robert's own fault if he
comes home and finds the house empty. If he doesn't take the trouble
to tell me his plans he must put up with the results, and it won't hurt
him to spend one evening by himself. I only hope he will find the
mice better company than I do ! "

So she gave herself up to the full enjoyment of the cheerful party
and returned home the day after the dance, feeling more light-hearted
than she had done for months.

" It's wonderful how a little festivity brightens one up," she thought
as she walked to the door. " I must really persuade Robert to take
me about rather more instead of devoting all his time to his books.
I am sure it would do us both good. I feel perfectly different from
what I did the other day ! "

However, no sooner had Mrs. Rawnsley entered the house than her
spirits were damped by perceiving that something was amiss. There
was a general air of confusion that was hardly to be explained by her
somewhat sudden appearance after so short an absence. She noticed

VOL. LIV. Q

242 A False Alarm.

that Stokes was not in his usual place, but concluding that the old
butler had treated himself to a holiday, she good-naturedly resolved to
ignore the fact and proceeded to elicit what information she could
from the other servants.

" So your master came home yesterday, after all ! Well, that is
vexing ! And where is he now ? "

" He started again by the first train this morning and went to
town," replied the housemaid who was being interrogated.

" Indeed ! And he did not mention when he was coming back ?
How very strange ! I suppose he was called off for business ! "

Isabel passed an uncomfortable evening, wondering every hour if
her husband would return, and whether he had: left home in
annoyance at not finding her there to meet him. Fifty times already
she regretted having gone to the theatricals. There was an op-
pressive air of mystery hanging over the house for which she could
not account. The servants crept about and whispered in corners,
and she constantly caught them staring furtively at her when they
thought her attention otherwise engaged.

It was a positive relief next morning when the old rector came
after breakfast to talk over preparations for the coming school-feast.
His conversation was not particularly exciting, but at all events he
looked her straight in the face and spoke without any signs of
embarrassment.

" By-the-bye, I saw Mr. Rawnsley in London yesterday," he said,
as he rose to go. " I had gone up to consult an oculist, for I
positively am growing so blind that I can hardly see to read. i\nd
as I was saying, I met your husband at the station — on his way to
Paris, he told me. Going for a change, I suppose ? Well, I expect
he wants it, for I thought him looking very ill. I told him he ought
to take you abroad to look after him, and he only laughed ; but I
don't consider it any laughing matter. I didn't like his looks at all,
myself. I wonder you don't feel anxious about him, starting on such
a long journey when he seems so unwell. However, I suppose he
won't stand much interference after having his own way for so many
years."

And with a chuckle at his little joke the old gentleman took his leave.

With a great effort Isabel repressed all signs of astonishment at
this unexpected news. She would not for worlds have let any one
know that she was ignorant of her husband's plans. At first wounded
pride predominated over all other feelings. But gradually the in-
formation struck her in another light. The rector had dwelt much
on Robert's altered appearance. What if he had suddenly been
taken ill and was at that moment being nursed by strangers in a
foreign town ! The very idea threw her into a perfect frenzy of
anxiety, and without pausing to consider any possible difficulties she
determined at once to follow him to Paris.

She hastily threw a few things into a portmanteau whilst her maid

A False Alarm, 243

looked on paralysed by her mistress's unwonted energy, and collect-
ing all the loose money that was in the house, she started off. It
was a new thing for her to undertake a long journey alone, and she
was exceedingly vague about the probable cost of tickets and various
other small matters of detail. But with indomitable perseverance she
consulted time-tables, and questioned porters, so that on the following
morning she found herself alighting, weary but triumphant, at the
Gare-du-Nord.

VI.

Now that she was in Paris she felt that all her difficulties were over.
It was true that she did not know her husband's address, but she had
quite arranged what to do. Philip Digby was certain to be at home
at that hour in the morning and possibly he could give her news of
Robert. Even if he had not met her husband he was so clever and
good-natured that she felt the utmost confidence in his powers of
putting everything straight. It was an intense relief to feel that she
had finished that awful journey at last. In spite of her fatigue she
thoroughly enjoyed the drive through the familiar streets. Each
turning in the road awakened fresh memories of the days when life
was nothing but a continual round of pleasure and excitement. As
she was leaning forward to look at some favourite shop she caught
sight of a man driving rapidly in the opposite direction who
reminded her strangely of her husband. She called to the driver to
stop, but before he understood what she wanted the other carriage
was out of sight and she concluded that she must have made a
mistake.

" After all, I should not be very likely to meet Robert the moment
I arrive," she thought ; " though it might have been him. Perhaps
he didn't recognise me. How funny that would be ! The looking-
glass in the waiting-room showed me what a fright I looked, but I
didn't know that I was past recognition ! If there is nothing the
matter, how I shall be laughed at for dashing over like this ! Probably
Robert only came to Paris to visit a library, or something of that kind,
and his ill-health merely existed in the rector's imagination. I wish I
had thought of that before ! However, it's too late to go back now,
for here is the Rue de I'Echelle and Phil's rooms. I wonder if he
will be up yet ? "

As Mrs. Rawnsley was inquiring of the concierge if her cousin was
at home, an elderly gentleman came down the stairs, and, hearing her
question, stopped short and addressed her in French.

" I am afraid you cannot see Mr. Digby to-day," he began ; " he is
ill, and, though it is nothing serious, I cannot have him disturbed or
excited."

At this totally-unforeseen difficulty, Isabel's philosophy quite gave
way. A sudden feeling of utter abandonment came over her, and
without speaking a word she burst into tears.

Q 2

244 ^'^ False Alarm.

The doctor looked at her attentively.

" You are alarmed about Mr. Digby," he said ; " that is quite
unnecessary. He has been rather badly wounded, but, with careful
nursing, he will be all right again very shortly."

" Wounded ! " echoed Isabel. " But what has happened ? "

" A quarrel with a compatriot, I believe," replied the doctor. " It
might have been very serious, but the bullet lodged against the
shoulder-blade, and we have been able to extract it without much
difficulty, so now there is no further cause for anxiety."

" But surely I can see him for one moment," urged Isabel. " I am
a near relation, and have just come from England "

" Ah ! " interrupted the doctor, " that rather alters the case. You
are probably Mr. Digby's sister ? Well, if you will promise to be very
calm, very collected, I will permit you to pay my patient a visit ; but
mind, no tears, no excitement ! He is doing very well now, but we
must not risk anything."

With repeated promises of obedience, Isabel followed the doctor to
the door of the sick-room. Here he summoned the nurse.

" I give this lady permission to see your patient for a minute," he
said, " on condition that he is kept perfectly quiet. You quite under-
stand that your brother's health depends on his not being excited ? "
he added, turning to Isabel. " Very well, then ; I will leave you, as
I have appointments elsewhere."

It is to be feared that Mrs. Rawnsley hardly carried out the doctor's
directions as they were intended.

" My dear Phil ! How silly you are ! How can you do such
things ? " she exclaimed, as soon as she caught sight of her cousin.

He was lying back on some pillows, very pale and bandaged, sc-
that he could not move, which gave him rather a ghastly appearance.

" Poor fellow ! You do look bad," she continued. " Don't try
to speak ; the doctor said you were to keep quiet. I can't tell you
how sorry I am to see you like this, both on your account and because
I wanted you to help me find Robert."

]\Ir. Digby gave an almost imperceptible start.

" What ! " cried Isabel, " have you met him by any chance ? Or
perhaps he has been to see you ? I don't know his address, and i
am so afraid he is ill ! When did you see him last ? "

" We parted about seven o'clock this morning," said Philip, with a
faint smile "You needn't excite yourself, he wasn't hurt."

" What do you mean ? " interrupted Isabel. " I don't know how-
he could be hurt. Oh ! " she screamed, suddenly grasping his
meaning, " you have been fighting with Robert ! The last man in
the world to do such a thing ! Robert fight a duel ! I don't believe
it ! What an excellent joke ! Ha, ha ! " and she broke into a fit of
hysterical laughter.

" I am glad it amuses you," said Mr. Digby dryly. " I am afraid
the humour of the situation escaped me at first. Still, as you point

A False Alarm. 245

out, it is exceedingly funny, and you have not yet heard the best of
the story. I am at present disabled for an indefinite time for having
had the temerity to run away with Mr. Rawnsley's wife during his
absence from home."

"And Robert really believes it?" shrieked Isabel. "Oh, I shall
never forgive you, Phil — never ! The absurdity of fancying that I
could run away with you / "

" Precisely what I told him ; but he wouldn't believe it. Now, my
dear child, the best thing you can do is to go home and make it up
with your husband. He ought to have come to his senses by this time.
He was going back by way of Dieppe. At all events, I am sure you
v/ill excuse me from talking any more. The doctor hinted at internal
haemorrhage and other stupid consequences if I disobeyed orders,
and that wouldn't help matters. I hope you will find matrimony more
of a success in the future than it has proved so far." With these
words Mr. Digby closed his eyes, and showed such evident signs of
weakness that the nurse took Mrs. Rawnsley by the arm and forcibly
led her out of the room.

" You must command your emotion or you will kill the poor
gentleman," she said with kindly severity. Not having understood a
word of the dialogue, she naturally concluded that Mrs. Rawnsley's
grief was attributable to the serious condition in which she found her
brother. " Here, madame, you can rest quietly and recover your
calm," she continued, opening the door of another room.

" I don't want to rest ! There is nothing the matter with me ! "
exclaimed Isabel feverishly. " Please give me a little water and I
shall be all right. There," she continued, drinking off a glass of
water at one draught, and readjusting her veil, " now I feel quite well.
No, I will not take up your time any longer. Go back to your
patient." So saying, she ran down the stairs, jumped into a passing
carriage, and ordered the driver to take her to the station without a
moment's delay.

VII.

It was getting dusk as Mrs. Rawnsley stepped on board the ViVle
d' Amiens at Dieppe that evening. She had no very distinct plan in
thus hurrying back to England. Only Philip's last words had sug-
gested the idea that she might find her husband on board, and she
now had absolutely no other wish in life than to have an opportunity
of explaining the truth to him. It would be so easy to show him
how the mistake had arisen ; and in the meantime she was still
childish enough to feel a good deal of satisfaction at her husband's
insane display of jealousy. It was a perfect revelation that Robert
could be stirred into doing anything so utterly repugnant to all his
principles as fight a duel on her account.

" If he had gone to his lawyer's, I should have hated him," she
thought, as she watched the thick autumn mist rolling up over the

246 A False Alarm,

water. " But to go straight to Paris and shoot poor Phihp on the
merest suspicion — oh ! he must be much fonder of me than I
thought ! "

At that moment her eyes fell on a travelling rug which was lying
on the deck beside her. Surely the pattern was strangely familiar 1
She had chosen one like it for Robert only a few weeks before and
worked his initials in the corner. And when she looked nearer, there
were the great silk letters which she had embroidered with a jesting
allusion to his careless way of losing all his smaller possessions on a
journey. So he was somewhere on the boat.

The idea made her heart beat so fast that for some minutes she
could not move. Presently, however, the thought that she might
again miss him braced her up to make an effort. Rising from her
seat, she began a careful scrutiny of such of the other passengers as
she could see sitting about on deck. Before long she recognised her
husband standing apart from the rest, staring gloomily out into the
darkness. In spite of his grey hair, and severe expression, he was
incomparably better-looking in her eyes than Philip, towards whom,
at that moment, she felt a somewhat unreasonable animosity. With-
out allowing herself the time to feel nervous, she walked up and
touched her husband on the shoulder.

Mr. Rawnsley started and looked round.

" I am so glad I have found you at last," began Isabel, but at the
sound of her voice he turned deliberately away.

" Oh, Robert ! Please stay ! I must tell you ! " she cried,,
catching him by the arm and beginning to sob hysterically. She
had intended to make a calm explanation which would carry con-
viction at once, but she was worn out with fatigue and his look of
aversion completely broke her down. " It was all a mistake," she
gasped. " I went to see Julia Grant, that was all ! It was indeed !".
I never even thought of Philip after he left ! He would tell you so
himself!"

" Probably ! " sneered Mr. Rawnsley, " as he swore you were in
England when I saw you myself driving about Paris ! But it is sheer
waste of time your making assertions, as unfortunately I cannot
believe them after what I have seen. No ! it is perfectly useless
discussing the subject," he continued, cutting short Isabel's exclama-
tion of horror. " You must see for yourself that there is nothing more
to be said." And without glancing at his wife he walked away to
the other end of the boat.

Mrs. Rawnsley was thunder-struck at the serious turn things had
taken. She had fancied that it would be so easy to make every-
thing clear at once, and now by her own confusion she had made the
case more involved than ever. Her head was aching so that she
could hardly think, and feeling more dead than alive she crept off tO'
her cabin and sinking down on a sofa, sobbed herself to sleep.

She was awoke by a fearful crash. For a moment she lay still.

A False Alarm. 247

wondering if anything had really happened, or whether it was only
another bad dream rather more vivid than its predecessors. Then
the shouts and screams on all sides convinced her that there really
had been an accident. The door was flung open and the steward
called to her to get up at once. There had been a collision in the
fog it seemed, and the Vi7/e (T Amiens was struck hard and was
beginning to sink.

Isabel hurried on deck. Here all was a scene of wild confusion in
the indistinct light of early morning. Everybody appeared to be
crowding towards one point where a boat was being filled with the
few women and children on board. Isabel stood rather aloof from
the struggling throng. She was unaccustomed to fighting her way
in the world and felt too spiritless to assert her own claims ^to
attention.

" Are they all in ? Stop ! Here's another lady ! " shouted a
sailor, catching sight of her at the last moment.

Mr. Rawnsley, who was trying to make some of the more excitable
passengers listen to reason, turned round at these words.

" Good heavens ! " he cried, rushing towards his wife, " I thought
you went in the first boat ! Come ! They are just starting."

" Are you coming ? " she inquired without moving from her
place.

" Presently, but now there is only room for one — be quick ! "

" I shall not go without you," she replied quietly. " I mean it,"
she added as he tried to drag her forward. " There ! it is no use.
Some one has taken my place and the boat is full."

" Do you know that you have thrown away your life ? " said Mr.
Rawnsley roughly. " That is the last boat, and unless the vessel
that ran into us is in a condition to help there is no hope."

" How long will it be before we sink ? " asked Isabel, calmly,
though she could not repress a slight shiver at the cold fog that hung
round them like a pall.

" It is impossible to say for certain. Half an hour, perhaps, or
even less. It can't go on long ! " cried Mr. Rawnsley, throwing his
arm round his wife as a violent jerk almost dashed her against a mass
of splintered wood.

" If that is all, it hardly seems worth while to quarrel for such a
short time, does it ? " said Isabel, gently. " You can surely trust me
to speak the truth now ? "

All her nervousness had vanished in the presence of a tangible
danger, and in a few words she told him the whole story.

" You see, I did nothing worse than go to the theatricals without
permission," she concluded, with a faint smile. " You believe me
now, don't you ? Here — I still have one of the programmes in my
pocket."

" No — don't show it me ! I need no proofs ! I must have been
mad ever to doubt you ! " replied Mr. Rawnsley, drawing his wife still

248 A False Alarm.

nearer to him as a huge wave broke over the deck. The injured boat
seemed to stagger under the weight of water as if she could hardly
right herself after the shock.

"This can't go on long," muttered Mr. Rawnsley, hoarsely. "It
is coming now, and I have murdered the one creature that I cared
for above all others ! "

" Don't say that," whispered Isabel, burying her face in her
husband's arms as the deck reeled under them. " Perhaps it is best
as it is. If we had lived you might fancy something else another time.
I am not frightened, but please hold me close, so that I may not
see it coming ! "

VIII.

Twelve hours later two people were seated on the balcony of an
hotel overlooking the sea. After a long silence the man turned to his
companion with a look of extreme anxiety.

" You look tired. Are you quite sure that you are none the worse
for all you have gone through ? " he said, gravely.

" No ! " replied the girl, with a merry laugh. " I tell you I have
not even a cold. When my maid arrives with some clean clothes,
you will confess that I never looked better in my life. One can't
expect to look smart in a dress that has been soaked with salt water."

"At alljevents," insisted Mr. Rawnsley, "you must be careful of
yourself after the exposure and fatigue of such a night. It was a very
near thing. If the other vessel had not been able to get us off at that
moment "

" Don't talk about it," said Isabel, quickly. " I thought I shouldn't
mind dying, but now I know I would rather live. And we will go
home and be happier than we have ever been before. You must even
forgive poor Stokes," she added, "for I should like everybody to be as
happy as I am. After all, he meant to act in your interests."

" Since you can forgive me, there is no reason why I should not
forgive Stokes," replied Mr. Rawnsley, gently pressing his wife's hand.
" But I think you will agree with me that such a faithful old servant
had better be allowed to retire on a pension."

It is unnecessary to add that Isabel joyfully acquiesced in this
arrangement.

249

MRS. PICKERING'S VANITY.
By Ina Garvey.

OLD Mr. Hudson had retired from business some years ago. His
business had been that of a dry-salter, and he had understood it
so well as to make a fortune at it. Before retiring from business as
a dry-salter, Mr. Hudson had, if we may be permitted the phrase,
retired from business as a husband. Mrs. Hudson had died in all
the fresh enjoyment of her carriage and her silks and her jewelled
brooches and bracelets, leaving her husband, as his sole companion,
a little sickly boy of half-a-dozen summers.

For a good many years after retiring from business, John Hudson
ruffled it with the best ; visiting about, entertaining in grand style his
many friends, travelling abroad, and enjoying to the full the riches he
had toiled for. His only child was sent in due course to Eton, and
thence blossomed forth into a second lieutenant of a smart cavalry
regiment.

But at length old Hudson's holiday after toil showed signs of
drawing to a close. His health began to break, old age was coming
upon him ; the pleasures that his money had brought him, eating and
drinking, riding and driving, sitting in fine rooms, being treated with
deference, and sometimes even with servility, buying costly treasures
of art, would be pleasures no longer. He had done his work, he had
had his day. " The account was about to be closed, at no distant period
would come the long dreamless sleep," said old Hudson to himself as he
crept up and down the sunny path of his highly ornate garden, and
mused on the great mystery of life and death.

Realizing that his part on the world's stage was played, and resign-
ing himself to old age and invalidism, he dismissed a great part of his
large staff of servants and shut up most of the showily furnished rooms
in his great new house built after the style of a celebrated Roman
villa, and standing on the breezy heights of a favourite London
suburb.

The servants who now formed the old gentleman's reduced estab-
lishment were — Simon Pickering, a personal attendant (" gentle,
patient, and experienced with the old and with invalids," said his
testimonials) who had replaced the smart valet of more vigorous and
fashionable days ; the said Simon Pickering's wife, a plain-featured
woman approaching middle age, who discharged the now not very
heavy duties of cook and housekeeper ; a couple of housemaids,
and a coachman, who did little save exercise his horses daily, his
master having grown partial to the gentle movement of a Bath-chair.

A neighbouring medical man, who had often been a guest at Mr.

Q*

250 Mrs. Pickering's Vanity.

Hudson's table, would drop in from time to time in an informal way,
but the invalid resented the notion of seeming under a doctor's care
and of being thought seriously ill. True he had had a stroke of
paralysis, but people sometimes lived for years after that if they were
careful and kept quiet ; and he was inclined to be impatient with his
son when the latter, now Captain Hudson and quartered in Dublin
with the 1 4th Canterers, appeared at Highstead on short leave, having
heard of the sudden failure of his father's health.

On a golden, mild autumn afternoon ; Captain Hudson had
returned to Dublin, and Josiah Hudson, leaning on the arm of his
attendant, Simon Pickering, moved slowly along his smoothly gravelled
garden-path. London lay below, softened by distance and sunshiny
haze into a silent dream-city.

" Pickering," said old Hudson, after contemplating the scene for
some time, " my sands are running out. Have you ever thought of
Heaven, and wondered what it will be like ? "

" I can't say as I've thought much about it, sir," answered the
attendant respectfully ; but he gave his master a searching glance,
for the question and the tone in which it was asked constituted, he
considered, a new symptom.

" Don't you think it will be something like that ? " — and the old
man pointed to the prospect beneath them. " See ! It might almost
be the New Jerusalem that the Bible speaks of, with its golden streets
and gates of pearl ! "

For a few minutes the old man stood looking silently at the scene,
his thoughts full and sad ; then he turned and leant yet more heavily
on the arm that supported him.

" Take me in, Pickering ; I'm afraid I've caught a chill."

Late that evening Pickering sat watching by his master's bed-side.
One of the maids had been sent to Dr. Page's to ask him to come
round, as ]\Ir. Hudson was " not so well." She had come back with
the information that Dr. Page was out just now, but would come as
soon as he returned.

Pickering sat by the bed where the feeble old man lay in a restless
feverish doze, and wondered whether this " bad turn " his master had
taken would prove fatal.

And while he so wondered, and while the clock in the passage
ticked loudly through the silence, and an occasional ember fell all too
noisily from the fire, the old man's eyes opened and looked at the
figure seated beside him ; but his mind, it seemed, was wandering, and
he thought he was looking at the son who had left him a week before.
" Humphrey, I'm glad you're there, Humphrey," said the ex-dry-
salter, picking at the bed-clothes with his hot, eager fingers. " I
dreamed you'd gone back to your regiment ; I'm glad you haven't.
I wanted to tell you, Humphrey, that there's money in the house —
more than is prudent, and you'd better bank it again. It's a matter
of a thousand pound in notes ; I drew it out because I meant to

,Mrs, Pickering's Vanity, 251

attend a sale at Christie's and pick up some treasures, but I was
taken ill, and there the money is. It's in the secret drawer of the
cabinet over yonder ; you know how to find the secret drawer, Hum-
phrey, don't you ? Open the second drawer with the smallest key of
the bunch I always carry about with me — take the drawer right out,
and feel about at the back of its space till you feel a tiny knob the
size of a pin's head, press that, and a little drawer will spring out at
the side — 'put your hand in it and feel about on its roof till you find
a tiny roughness, press that, and another little drawer will spring out
at the back, and in that is the thousand pound. Go and get it now,
Humphrey," said the sick man, his voice sinking to an excited whisper ;
^' it's not safe there ! the cabinet might be carried off and broken up.
I don't trust the servants ; I don't trust Pickering ; he's skilful and
gentle, but he's a cunning eye — and I don't trust his wife ! Get it out,
Humphrey, boy, and bank it — or we may both be murdered." His
speech grew wilder and more incoherent after this — his manner more
feverish and excited. Ten minutes later Dr. Page's ring was heard at
the door.

Josiah Hudson never rallied from that "bad turn.'^ Dr. Page
remained with him through the night. Just at the approach of dawn,
when life is lowest, another and severe " stroke " descended on the
feeble form in the bed. He lay in a living death, silent, motionless,
unconscious, until after the hurried arrival of his son, and then passed
into a world where his real estate and his personalty availed him
nothing.

On the evening after the funeral. Captain Hudson sat deep in
conversation with Mr. Lincoln, the family solicitor, in the smoking-
room of Highstead Villa.

" The bank tells me he drew out a thousand pounds in notes a
fortnight ago," the captain was saying in a low, discreet voice ; " but
there's no such sum in the secret drawer of his cabinet, where he
always kept any considerable amount of ready money that he had
in the house. He was in the habit of attendmg Art Sales at Christie's,
and would draw out large sums for that purpose. If this thousand was
drawn with the intention of attending the last sale, and he was prevented
by his illness from going to it — why, then, I suppose a pretty big
robbery has been ' committed ! ' Of course the bank has the numbers
of the notes, but we can't stop them on a supposition — for my father
may have drawn out the money and paid it away on some private
business that we don't know of."

The lawyer shook his head.

" We should have found some memorandum of such payment among
his papers. It is my firm conviction that Mr. Hudson drew the money
out with the intention of attending Christie's last sale, and was pre-
vented by his increasing illness — that, in his failing state, he did not
put the money in a sufficiently safe place (unless, indeed, one of the

252 Mrs. Pickering's Vanity,

servants has discovered the secret drawer of the cabinet), and that the
thief and, as yet, the money, are under this roof. This man, Pickering,"
and the lawyer's tone dropped still lower : " what is known of him ? "

The captain shrugged his shoulders. " He came to my father some
months ago with a character that gave him all the cardinal virtues —
in short, he seemed the very man old what's-his-name in ancient times
was always looking for with a lantern ! His wife was engaged at the
same time as cook-housekeeper ; I know nothing against her — except
the worst that can be said of a woman — she's uncommonly plain ! "

The solicitor mused in silence for a time. " And you tell me they
are leaving here for another situation the day after to-morrow ; the
best thing you can do is to have a detective up from Scotland Yard
to-morrow morning."

It was the night following that on which Captain Hudson and the
solicitor had conferred together. Simon Pickering and his wife were
in the housekeeper's room sacred to the latter, and had, as was evident
from the appearance of the table, been enjoying a snug little supper.
They were now seated one at each side of the fire, and Mrs. Pickering,
having thrown a cotton wrapper round her shoulders, had taken down
her abundant dark hair and was brushing it at her ease. The late
Mr. Hudson's cook-housekeeper was a woman of rather unusually plain
face, and was, therefore, perhaps inclined to be the more vain abouty
and careful of, her one little gift to her. So she sat brushing her
generous allowance of fine dark hair while she looked into the fire
with knitted brows and face of deep cogitation. Her husband watched
her with evident anxiety as to the result of her musings. Presently,
after going to the door — for the third time within ten minutes —
ascertaining that no one was listening outside, re-closing it, and return-
ing to his chair, Pickering leaned across the hearth and addressed his
wife in the very lowest tones of his soft voice.

"Yes, we must hit on some way, at o?ice, of smuggling the notes
out with us to-morrow morning. If we can't hit on some plan of the
kind, they'd best go into that fire direct ! This detective that's been
here to-day (for that's what he is — I spotted him at once !) will have
all the servants searched, of course ; and we shall be searched just as
we're ready to start — that's their intention. So set your wits to work t
It would be a pity to burn a thousand pounds ! I don't know as I
should have done as I did, only I was so sure of your help. Women
are always to the fore in a shady business."

" And men are always ready to make use of us in such business,
and lay all the blame on us afterwards," rejoined Mrs. Pickering with
some asperity. Then, after a pause, she rose, looked at herself in the
little mantel-glass, and, twisting her hair into deep, old-fashioned rolls
on each side of her face : " How should you like me in this style,
Pickering ? " she asked nonchalantly. " It's not fashionable, but it's
becoming."

Mrs. Pickering's Vanity. 253

Simon Pickering stamped his foot and clenched his hands. " D'you
want me to go distracted ? " he said ; but his voice did not get im-
prudently loud though his rage was great. " To talk about the fashion
of your hair at such a time ! There's a thousand pound at stake,
woman, and the chance of ten years' hard labour. If you was hand-
some it would be maddening enough to hear of your vanity just now ;
but being what you are "

" Yes, I think it would suit me very well," said Mrs. Pickering to
herself, still calmly reviewing her reflection in the glass ; " PU change
the fashion of my hair from this very night, and wear it in rolls."

Simon Pickering was right in his prediction. Immediately before
departing to the new situation which they professed to have obtained,
the late Mr. Hudson's attendant and his wife, as also the rest of the
domestic staff at Highstead Villa, were searched. Their boxes stood
ready, and they had just taken an early breakfast, when the Scotland
Yard functionary and his female assistant presented themselves. The
Pickerings submitted with cheerful readiness to the process. Mrs.
Pickering and the female searcher withdrew, and, on their reappearance
in ten minutes' time, the cook-housekeeper's pleasant manners seemed
to have won sensibly on the stern policewoman. Their boxes were
turned out, but yielded no more proof of guilt than their persons had
done. No pretext remained for detaining them. Pickering fetched
a cab, the boxes were placed on it, Mrs. Pickering, after adieus to
her fellow-servants and a curtsey to Captain Hudson, who happened
to pass across the passage, stepped into the cab, her husband mounted
the box beside the driver, and the vehicle trundled away down the
Highstead Hill, ostensibly bound for Euston Station.

But Inspector Sharpe of the detective force was ill at ease. He
did not like to see these people depart in peace, yet he could not
detain them. There might have been no robbery at all. Old Mr.
Hudson might have paid away the thousand pounds in private business
and left no memorandum of such payment. On the other hand, if
there had been a robbery, this highly-respectable couple who had just
taken their departure seemed to Inspector Sharpe, despite their having
come triumphantly through the morning's ordeal, a quarter towards
which he would do well to direct his talents. He would like to keep
them in view.

To remain at Highstead Villa investigating was, however, also a
task much after his own heart. But it was clear he would have to
depute another for one or other of these duties.

While he ruminated thus, pacing silently along the lower passages
of Highstead Villa, the voices of Rose and Emily, the two house-
maids, reached his ears from the kitchen near at hand ; he paused
instinctively to listen.

" Well, Emily, you and me'll be off in a day or two ! I only hope
in my next place there won't be no old gentlemen dying, and their

254 Mrs, Pickering's Vanity.

sons going and having the servants searched afterwards as if they'd
committed a murder — that I do ! It's an insult to honest girls like
you and I, that it is ! "

A second voice assented with a good many exclamations, and the
first voice continued. " The idea of that there jNIrs. Pickerins; havins:
such an amiount of vanity I I wonder what sudden freak took her to
change the fashion of her hair and wear it in them old-fashioned rolls ?
To be sure, I think I never did see an uglier woman I "

" She is ugly ; and yet she managed to get married, you see ! "
remarked the second voice.

" Yes," rejoined the other, " that's what always puzzles me ! These
ugly women always get married, whilst good-looking girls like you and
I don't get the ghost of a chance ! "

" Speak for yourself I " was the somewhat indignant retort. " /could
get married to-morrow, if I chose ; but I'm hambitious. I must have
a husband as'll keep me like a lady. No — I never did see such a
fright as Mrs. Pickering looked in them great big rolls of hair 1 "

Inspector Sharpe passed on silently down the passage, and his
musings deepened.

The Seagull, a small paddle-steamer belonging to a certain line
that plies between the Thames and the Flemish sea-ports, lay at St.
Katharine's Wharf, waiting to drop down the river in the early morning.
She had taken on her cargo, which, on the return journey, would be
replaced by Ostend rabbits. More than her cargo the Seagull did
not expect this wet stormy October night, for, though during the
summer weeks a good many passengers crossed cheaply to the Con-
tinent by her and her sister-vessels, she had looked for none such for
some little time now. The elderly stewardess was therefore a little
surprised when, at eleven o'clock at night, as she sat by her bright
little fire in the ladies' cabin sipping a glass of something comfortable,
and thinking of presently retiring into one of the red-curtained berths
that lined the walls, she heard the sound of an arrival above, and a
minute later was aware of a solitary lady-passenger being shown down
the little stairway into the cabin.

" Pray don't disturb yourself, stewardess," said the passenger,
pleasantly. " Remain by the fire and finish your supper, I beg I "

The stewardess was at once prepossessed in the new arrival's favour
— noted with interest the name " Mrs. Thomson " on the ticket of
her bag ; and, though forced to own silently that the face disclosed
when the veil was raised was not comely, mentally pronounced the
unexpected passenger, " Quite the lady ! "

The latter threw herself down on one of the faded red velvet seats
that ran round the little cabin. " One feels a little strange and lone-
some, stewardess, travelling without one's husband," she said ; " but
I must be brave and resist the temptation to have a regular good cr)\'

" Indeed and you must, ma'am ! " responded the old stewardess

Mrs. Pickering's Vanity. 255

with ready and officious sympathy, bustling to help her charge remove
her cloak and wraps. " Crying doesn't mend matters. Dear sakes
alive, ma'am, I've had to do without my 'usband for good and all this
many a year ! Just fifteen year it is since we went pleasuring to
Greenwich, and what must poor Tollyfield do but let his legs run
away with him down Greenwich hill, and pitched on his head at the
bottom, and was took up dead." The stewardess wiped her eyes
after this peroration and proceeded to hang up the passenger's shawls.
" And how about supper, ma'am ? Shall I get you something ? To
be sure it's very late, and I don't know if "

" Oh ! thank you ; I shan't need anything but what I have with
me," said the passenger. Accordingly, having eaten one or two
biscuits and taken something from a flask, she professed herself ready
to go to her berth. "What time in the morning do we start,
stewardess ? "

" About five, ma'am. Which of the berths will you sleep in ? I
can recommend this one as about the most comfortable. Dear,
dear ! Three months back there wasn't much choosing of where
ladies would sleep, in here ! I'd all the berths full, and ladies
sleeping all over the floor as well ! Dear sakes alive ! and the
quarrelling that went on ! I'd have given up my post many a time,
only what can a lone widow with nine children do ? Well, I thought
I'd done waiting on ladies for this year, to be sure ! But I'm always
glad to wait on one as is a lady, pleasant and kindly spoken ! "

The passenger had not yet taken ofl" her travelling cap. She now
removed it, showing a fine mass of dark plaited hair, with a deep,
old-fashioned roll on each side of the face. In a few minutes, assisted
by the assiduous Mrs. Tollyfield, she was comfortably settled in one
of the lower berths.

" Thank you, stewardess, I shan't want anything more, much
obliged ! Oh dear ! My poor head aches pretty badly ! " said the
passenger as she lay down.

" Poor dear creature ! Does it now ? " responded the stewardess,
tucking in the rugs and blankets that she had piled upon her charge,
" Headache's bad, sure ! — though heartache's worse. You want some
good sleep and pleasant dreams about your 'usband that you're
parted from, ma'am. But I'm afraid you won't sleep comfortably
unless you take down your hair ; let me arrange it for you."

The passenger drew her head away with a sudden jerk.

" Be good enough to leave my hair alone ! " she said in a stern,
threatening manner, very different from her former affability. " I
shall do very well and want nothing more."

The stewardess drew the red curtain of the berth and left her.
But Mrs. Tollyfield's good opinion of the SeaguIPs soli^ry passenger
was shaken. " A vixen of a temper, for all her pleasantness ! The
idea of flying out at me like that, all for nothing ! "

Thus cogitating the stewardess went to rest.

256 Mrs. Pickering's Vanity.

At five o'clock in the morning there was plenty of bustle on the
little deck of the Seagull, and enough shouting for an Orient liner.
Below the stewardess was busy also, and the one passenger, having
just emerged from her berth and put on the few articles of dress that
she had laid aside last night, was sitting by the little fire in the ladies'
cabin, wrapped in a shawl,

*' We're off now, aren't we, stewardess ? " she asked with an eager-
ness that was half involuntary, as she took the cup of tea that had
been prepared for her.

" Yes, ma'am, we're off now. Mrs. Tollyfield's tone was a little
stiff; she had not quite forgotten the rebuff of the previous night.

Sure enough, they were off. The paddle-wheels turned once,
slowly, laboriously, with a great deal of churning and splashing ;
turned twice, more easily and quickly ; turned three times ; the lady-
passenger standing on a seat and looking through a porthole that
commanded the farther shore of the river, saw the dingy warehouses
begin to slide away.

'' Yes, we're off now ! " she said gaily, jumping down and coming
back to her seat by the fire. But in another moment she added :
" We've stopped ! What's that for, stewardess ? "

The paddle-wheels had suddenly ceased their splashing and
churning ; the shouting above was more vehement than ever, and
seemed to be responded to by shouting from the shore close at hand,
then the Seagull began to back.

"Something been forgotten," said the stewardess; "and we're
returning for it.''

The passenger set down her half-finished cup of tea and listened.

The shouting continued, and the little vessel backed to St.
Katharine's wharf which she had just quitted.

" Seems to be another passenger coming on board," said the
stewardess.

Her companion made no answer, but gazed sternly and stonily into
the little fire before which she sat.

A few moments later brisk steps were heard coming down the
stairway, and then came a peremptory rap at the door of the ladies'
cabin.

" Who have you got in here, stewardess ? " asked a man's voice, as
Mrs. Tollyfield hurried to the door.

" One lady, sir."

" Ah ! that's right," said Inspector Sharpe, stepping into the little
room. " Good morning, Mrs. Pickering. You very nearly gave us
the slip — very nearly ! I've been thinking that that little ceremony
that you took part in at Highstead Villa yesterday morning, you and
the rest of the household staff, was not quite thorough enough. My
female assistant didn't ask you to take down your hair, ma'am, so I've
followed you here to get you to do it, if you'll be so good."

Mrs. Pickering looked at the inspector, looked at the wondering

Mrs. Pickering'' s Vanity. 257

face of the old stewardess. " Well," she said, with a quick deep sigh,
*' the game's up, I suppose ! Five minutes ago I thought I was safe.
Bad luck to you, officer, for not giving me the chance of getting
clean away ! " She paused a moment.

" Will you shake out those rolls, Mrs. Pickering, or shall I ? " said
Inspector Sharpe.

" Oh ! /'// take 'em down ! It's no good refusing nozu I " She
put her hands up to her hair, unrolled it, laid the contents on the
table. The detective carefully smoothed the paper out, until ten
banknotes lay on the table. The inspector quietly placed them
together.

" Ten one-hundred-pound notes make a thousand pounds, the sum
missed from the late Mr. Hudson's cabinet. Not a bad notion at all,
yours, of concealing 'em, Mrs. Pickering ! ' I don't suppose any lady's
hair was ever more expensively dressed, ma'am ! And now, if you'll
put your bonnet on, I must ask you to return on shore with me."

Five minutes later the Seagull steamed away without any passengers,
the stewardess loud in her wonder and her moralisings. " Dear sakes
alive ! So that was why she kept her hair rolled, and flew out at me
last night. And me thinking it was all temper ! How we do mis-
judge people ! "

NINETEEN.

I AM filled with vague unrest to-night,

As I sit by my window and watch the light

Grow dim and faint in the western skies,

And my heart beats low and my lips breathe sighs,

F'or something most precious is floating away.

Just out of my reach in twilight gray.

The last faint beam in the west has fled ;
The stars come forth, the day is dead.
The wheels of time roll swiftly on,
And nineteen years of my life are gone.
I call to the sunbeam, " Return, I pray !
You know not what you are bearing away."
But I watch and weep and call in vain —
It will never come back to me again !

258

WHAT A NAUGHTY BOY DID.

'T^WO small figures are seated on the turf. The girl is six, and has
-*- a solemnly sweet face, enhanced in beauty by a cloudy-lace
"Granny" bonnet. The boy is seven, a man-of-war suit being worn
with the air of a commander at least, and a frown of mingled
perplexity and determination adorning his countenance.

" It's a beastly shame, Dolly ! She promised it, and then she
locked it up in her box."

" But you were naughty. Rex. You must have been very bad,"
said Dolly, with a reproachful look. " You know cousin Dora never
breaks her promises."

" Bah ! you don't know anything ! " cried Rex, contemptuously.
" She just wanted not to give it ; but I'll have it."

"When you deserve it," remarked Dolly, with grave severity, as
she walked away from her cousin to inquire from the old cow-keeper
when she could have her glass of new milk.

In the shady drawing-room two widows and three maidens
gossiped and drank tea.

The stoutest widow — who had passed all the rubicons which now
divide youth from age, and really knew she was old, and allowed her
silver hair to shine in its native colour — enjoyed her tea and listened
to the conversation, only correcting false reports when uttered.

The other widow was fair and tall, and had no age. Her eyes
beamed, her face was carefully preserved, and her slow and graceful
movements were always a rest to the eye.

Of the three maidens two were lively ordinary girls, to be met with
any day. The other was a dark-eyed, broad-browed girl of three-and-
twenty — Dora Morville. There was intellect in her face, and pride
stronger than life. She wore a soft creamy dress, and her small feet
were just seen beneath it in delicate bronze slippers. She listened to
the rattle of the two sisters, Maude and Lucy Truscott, and joined in
now and then in a sweet, low voice. Presently Maude said to the
younger widow :

" Captain Branscombe has come into a peerage and a fortune.
Fancy, after every one calling him such a bad speculation ! "

Mrs. Dargrave's face faintly coloured.

" Did every one call him so ? " she inquired languidly.

" Why, of course ! You know he was avoided by all the chaperons,
and a girl he loved gave him up because he was poor."

" Nonsense ! "

The word was impatiently uttered by Dora Morville ; but when
the others looked at her, the face was again calm and immovable.

" I was told so," said Maude rather hufiily, and Lucy chimed in

What a Naughty Boy Did. 259

" So was I." " But," added Maude, with a tinge of spite, " I don't
know the particulars, for it happened three years ago, and I was in
the school-room then — so were you, Lucy."

" Ah, my dears," said old Lady Dearmouth, with her genial far-
seeing gaze of kindness, " stories gain in trouble with years, just as
people do ! I never knew a tale that did not get broader and
longer."

" Rover's hasn't," solemnly corrected a small voice, as Dorothy
came in through the window — " you know it hasn't, grandma ! "

" Dolly, you're a duck ! " whispered Cousin Dora, who was rejoicing
in the laughter and distraction caused by the child's advent.

" So are you," said Dolly, with an earnest nod. " What makes
Rex angry with you ? "

Dora collected her faculties.

" This morning Rex would not obey orders ; he did something
grandmamma had told him not to do. Before he began to be
naughty, I told him I would not give him something I had for him if
he was disobedient. He 7vas disobedient ; so I put it away."

Dolly nodded again. That sweet little wise head was always
nodding.

" That's quite fair ! But," with a pleading look, " Rex is a dear
boy when he isn't naughty. Couldn't you help to make him good ? "

" I'll try, Dolly," said Dora, softly kissing the little face.

In the meantime a small burglar had climbed the gardener's ladder
and got in at Dora's window. Then he walked swiftly to a trunk
which he found unlocked.

" This is where she put the parcel — and I think it was a fishing-
book," soliloquised the boy. A step sounded in the passage, down
dived the little arm into the box, and seized a small brown-paper
parcel. Then he crept behind the bed-curtain and waited till the
foot-steps echoed on in the distance. After that he shoved the parcel
inside his sailor jacket and disappeared from the window, just as an
arrival of visitors to stay in the house created a diversion which pre-
vented his being seen. He could not get a chance of examining his
treasure then, for nurse called him to tea.

" Coming," he shouted, but sped first to a summer-house where he
climbed up the wood-work and hid the parcel in the ivy.

Dolly was waiting to accompany him to the nursery.

" Rex, some gentlemen have come to stay. One /s so nice ! "

" I saw him — a big man with a beard ! " said Rex. " That's papa's
friend. Captain Branscombe."

" He's called Zord Branscombe now," corrected Dolly.

This did not interest Rex. He ran on to get his tea, and met
Dora on the stairs. She put her hand on his shoulder, and said,
" Rex, come and see me after tea."

A little defiant face looked up at her, and then without answering
the boy brushed past.

26o What a Naughty Boy Did.

" Oh, Rex, you are a rude boy ! " said Dolly reproachfully, and she
would not sit beside him at tea, as a punishment.

Dora Morville passed slowly along the broad staircase, and when
she was on the last step but one, halted suddenly and turned pale.
Two gentlemen had just emerged from the library — one a quick,
clever-looking man of forty, Rex's father and Lady Dearmouth's only
son — the other Lord Branscombe. With an effort Dora recovered her
usual graceful ease.

" Ah ! " said Sir Edward Dearmouth, " I am glad to find you still
staying with my mother, Dora. You know my old friend Branscombe,
I think."

Dora bowed and held out her firm little hand, looking for a second
into the face that strove to appear as unconcerned as her own. It
was two years since they had met, and Lord Branscombe had not
been in England since. A careless eye would not have thought any
warmer feeling than friendship had ever existed between the two.

" It is almost time to dress for dinner," said Dora, as the two young
ladies, Maude and Lucy, emerged from the drawing-room, and took
careful notes of the group in the hall ; " but I have come for my
work-basket." She passed on into the room, and the others dispersed.
Then she went to one of the open windows and stood until she felt
sure of herself.

" I never thought it would be like this," she reasoned, with hands
tight clasped, and big tears gathering. " I thought the pain was
past ! "

The large drawing-room lay in dim light behind her, and pale stars
were twinkling in the evening sky. How she longed to stay there, and
dreaded the dinner and the glare of lights !

There was a little figure watching outside — it was Rex. He was
trying to make up his mind to tell her he was sorry, and to give back
the parcel he had hidden, when the sight of her tears made him pause.
While he was pondering Dora escaped to her room, from which she
emerged only as the party were moving in to dinner.

The graceful widow engrossed Lord Branscombe, and looked her
best. Dora was pale and silent ; but that the other young ladies
regarded as an advantage, for their own pointless remarks gained more
attention than usual. A young squire, a grave curate, and an old
General, who was evidently smitten with Dora, completed the party.
In vain the veteran soldier endeavoured to interest Dora, and she had
been so amiable to him at a tennis-party only three days before, that
his feelings were almost as hopeful as the ardour of youth could have
made them. Once or twice the kind eyes of Lady Dearmouth rested
anxiously on her loved young grand-daughter — the orphaned child of
her -favourite daughter who had been dead many years. She had
guessed at a sort of attachment between Dora and the Captain Brans-
combe of two years ago, and now that they had met again under her
roof could not but notice the constraint of the girl's manner. Beneath

What a Naughty Boy Did. 261

the well-bred, pleasant indifference with which Lord Branscombe con-
versed with the fascinating widow, Mrs. Dargrave, Lady Dearmouth
detected unrest also. It was a relief to her when dinner ended, and
early in the evening Dora excused herself for her paleness and dulness,
saying she had a headache ; and availed herself of her grandmother's
gentle suggestion that she should go to her own room. So when the
gentlemen came in, Lord Branscombe's eyes roamed with an unsatisfied
look over the group of ladies, and the old General was uncomfortably
disappointed for the rest of the evening.

Next morning Rex sought Dora directly after breakfast in the
pretty morning-room, where she had just settled herself to embroider
some useless but ornamental present for her grandmother. Dora
looked up brightly at the little fellow who was a pet of hers. The
rain was pouring in torrents against the window, and she knew Rex
was hard up for amusement when he could not get out.

" Well, Rex, come and have a chat."

The boy satisfied himself that no one else was in the room, then
said in a low voice :

" Cousin Dora, I am sorry I took the book."

Dora looked up surprised.

"What book, dear?"

"Why, the fishing-book."

" What are you talking about ? I've got it here ! " and Dora dived
into her work-basket and brought from beneath a heap of silks a
paper parcel very similar to the one Rex had taken.

The child stood amazed.

" But you put it in your box, and I took it out of your box while
you were at tea yesterday."

" Rex, how dared you go to my box ? " said Dora, with a flash of
her eyes that made her little cousin thoroughly ashamed. " Besides
I always keep it locked. Where is the parcel ? "

Between sobs Rex answered — ■

" The box w^asn't locked, and I did take a parcel, and I hid it in
the summer-house down by the copse, and I took the string off it,
but I thought I wouldn't open it till I'd told you. And I wanted
to tell you before dinner last night but you were crying in the
drawing-room window."

" Hush, Rex ! " said Dora hastily.

" You were, I say ; I saw your eyes all wet."

" Where is the parcel now, Rex ? ' asked the girl, as calmly as she
could.

" Why in the summer-house, and it'll all get wet."

Dora rose and went to her room, where she looked in the box,
and missed something which caused her to clasp her hands and turn
pale. Then she glanced out at the pitiless rain, and taking down
a waterproof proceeded to equip herself for a journey.

On the stairs she met Rex.

262 What a Naughty Boy Did.

" I'm going to find what you took away, Rex. Tell me exactly
where you put it ? "

The child minutely explained, and after saying a few words,
calculated to convince him that he had acted very dishonourably,
Dora left him with hanging head and tears of shame in his eyes.

Now, directly after breakfast. Sir Edward Dearmouth was called
into consultation on business matters by his mother, and Lord
Branscombe donned a stout ulster and went out for his morning
smoke. He walked in a leisurely way far from the house, to the
amazement of the gardeners, who were all taking shelter in hot-houses
and conservatories, with a praiseworthy dread of inconvenience in the
present and rheumatism in the future.

Having reached the wilderness part of the grounds. Lord Brans-
combe found himself by the notable summer-house, where the children
were generally the only visitors. Sundry wheel-barrows, carts and
horses, and other toys lay untidily about, and amongst them fluttered
certain white bits of paper. A blast of wind and rain drove the
explorer under shelter, and as he looked down amused at the
improvised stable under the seat, where a patient wooden horse stood
with his head in a very full bag of corn, his eyes fell upon his own
name, before he had his present title, written on the back of a damp-
looking letter. In much astonishment he lifted it, and found it had
never been opened, although it had passed through the post to what
had been his home in an uncle's family. Recognising the writing,
Lord Branscombe's hand trembled as he tore it open. As he read it
a flush rose to his forehead. It was a letter he had longed and waited
for in vain two long years ago. Why had it not reached him, and
whence came it now ? Excitement filled his mind, and his eyes
wandered round the children's play-house in search of some clue.
A wet bit of brown paper fluttered under the seat near the patient
horse, and on looking closer several letters were visible. They were
all open, and addressed to Miss Morville. Two in his own writing.
What he had once written he felt he might read. One was full of
anxious tenderness and a desire to overcome some trifling coldness
that had arisen from a misunderstanding with the girl he loved.
The other — by heavens, he never wrote this I White with indignation
he read, in letters so like his own he could scarce have known them
apart —

" Dear Miss Morville, — I here return unopened the letter you
have done me the honour to write. Circumstances have arisen which
render it clearly impossible for me to continue any correspondence.

" Truly yours,

" G. Branscombe."

He looked up with wrathful gaze just as the wet umbrella of Dora
Morville was thrust under the cover of the summer-house.

What a Naughty Boy Did. 263

Her face was as pale as his, and indignation made her voice
tremble, as she held out her bare hand from under her cloak,
saying, " My letters. Lord Branscombe ! " in as imperative a voice as
she could muster.

" This is yours," he answered in a pained voice, handing her one
of the two she had supposed to be written by him ; " the other is a
forgery ; and this letter addressed to me I see now for the first time ! "

The dark eyes of the girl were raised in speechless wonderment.
She trembled, and reached out a hand to support herself against the
side of the arbour. Both her hands were seized, and Lord Brans-
combe bent his head in earnest supplication.

" Child, child, can you not believe me ? Treachery has done its
work for two years, but will you not trust me now ? I have never
swerved in my love, though the letter I now hold never reached me,
and it was to have been the sign between us of reconciliation."

Lower and lower drooped Dora's dark head. The rain poured on,
but the lovers heard it not. Pride and doubt melted away, and com-
plete happiness held sway. In the house were cries of " Where is
Dora ? " and presently when she came in. Rex, v/ho had earnestly
watched for her, intercepted her in her headlong rush to escape meet-
ing any one.

" Why, Dora, what a time you've been ! Couldn't you find the
parcel ? " he said, anxiously regarding her.

" Yes — yes, dear ; I found it."

" Then it's all right, I suppose ? You aren't angry any more ? "
and the boy's wistful, wilful eyes peered wonderingly into the changed
face before him.

" Not angry. Rex," she answered, stooping softly to kiss him.
*' I am so happy, I must forgive you ! "

" That's right," cried Dolly, who followed Rex upstairs, " now we'll
be jolly again. But, cousin Dora " — and the sweet face was full of
earnest inquiry — " what makes you so happy just when Lord Brans-
combe is ? I heard him tell grandma he was ' awfully glad ' of
something."

" Go and find a fishing-book for Rex in my work-basket," said
Dora, in a half-stifled voice, for she was between tears and laughter.
She stood to watch the two little cousins rush eagerly to the room
where her work-basket had lain since morning, then obtained a few
minutes of quiet realisation of recovered happiness before luncheon.

Lord Branscombe had told her with sorrow and shame that he
believed the writer of the letter forged in his name to be one of his
own cousins, who for reasons of her own desired to separate him from
Dora. His lips were sealed by regard for family honour, and so the
plotting and treacherous young lady only met her punishment. But
it was a hard one, when she read of a joyous wedding to a description
of which the Morning Post devoted half a column.

The nice old General read his fate in the happy consciousness of

2^4 What a Naughty Boy Did.

Lord Branscombe and the blushing Dora. So did the fascinating
Mrs. Dargrave ; but it is not certain that her suave powers may not
soften fate yet, for there are those who say she is catching the old
General's heart in that happy state known as " the rebound."

Minnie Douglas.

ONCE ONLY.

Once only passeth the soul within life's portal,

Earth-chains to wear;
Once, in the dawn of an infant life, yet mortal,

jAIan taketh share.

Once, childish joys, with a child's light toiling earned.

All stainless seem ;
Once, the drear lesson of sorrow, sorely learned,

Ends childhood's dream.

Once only— ay, but for once— we wholly love ;

Heart into heart
Pouring the wealth of its God-gifts from above,

Love's holier part.

Once only— thus it may chance— our love is dumb.

Withered, or slain.
Then once we cry to the heavens, "Shall it come

Not once again ^ "

Then roll the wearier years— the long cold years

Till the death-call
Whispers its half-dreaded joy through mortal fears

Once, unto all.

Once only passeth the soul beyond life's prison.

Earth-chains to sever;
Once only breaketh the Day-and light is risen

Once, and for ever.

OSBERT H. HOWARTH.

THE ARGOSY.

OCTOBER, i8g2.

A GUILTY SILENCE.

CHAPTER XXXIX,
Margaret's return,

1\/TR. and Mrs. Bruhn did not return from their wedding-tour till
^^ ^ the middle of February. They set out with the intention of
being away three weeks, but did not come back till the end of as
many months. Mr. Bruhn was weaned from business habits and
business thoughts in a way that he would not have believed possible
previous to his marriage. Old artistic instincts that had slumbered
for years woke to sudden life when he found himself among the
galleries of the Continent, with leisure enough to enjoy their beauties,
and an appreciative companion by his side. To Margaret, that three
months' journey, the bourne of which was Rome, was like one glorious
dream. After her long years of poverty, of intellectual hunger, of
soul-wearying drudgery now in one school-room, now in another, it
w^as as the lifting of scales from the eyes of one long blind. She felt
as though she had never really lived till now. To be able to journey
from one famous spot to another, and have sufficient time to see
everything that was noteworthy in each, yet not staying long enough
anywhere to wear off the delicate edge of novelty, would, in any case,
have seemed a privilege to Margaret. But to be able to do all this
with the aid of every appliance that refined wealth knows so well how
to make use of, was something that in former days might just have
tinged her wildest dreams, but had not the faintest touch of reality in
it. Yet now it had all come to pass !

Rome was the crown of Margaret's dream. After a month spent
in that city of great memories, there crept over her a desire to wing
her way back to the happy English nest which she knew was awaiting
her. Brook Lodge would call her mistress, and she had a conscious-
ness which she did not try to disguise, that the position would become
her well.

They journeyed homeward by easy stages. During her absence
from Helsingham, Mrs. Bruhn had heard frequently from her sister,
and also from Miss Easterbrook ; but no word respecting what had

VOL. LIV, r

266 A Guilty Silence,

befallen Esther Sarel had been permitted to reach her. ]\Ir. Bruhn,
on reading the details of the case in the batch of local newspapers
which reached him while he was at Paris, had at once written privately
to Miss Easterbrook, and also to Trix, requesting that in their letters
to his wife no allusion whatever should be made to the wretched
affair ; and he, on his side, took care that no newspaper containing
any mention of it should reach Margaret's hands. He knew^ of his
wife's liking for Esther, and he judged that the tidings, whenever they
should reach her — and sooner or later they must do so — would prove
a great shock to her, and cause her much distress of mind ; and, having
determined in his own mind that his wife's wedding-tour should be a
season of unalloyed happiness, as far as it lay in his power to make it
such, he tried his best to keep her in total ignorance of Esther's sad
fate, and succeeded. Margaret came home with the full expectation
of being greeted both by her sister and by Esther Sarel immediately
on her arrival.

It was nine o'clock on a frosty February evening when Mr. and
Mrs. Bruhn alighted at the Helsingham station. Margaret's heart
gave a throb of exultation as she stepped into the close carriage that
was waiting for them, and was shut in by the obsequious footman.
But she did not forget to give one wistful glance round the platform,
half expecting, perhaps, to see some familiar face waiting to greet her ;
but there was no one whom she recognised.

" Home at last," said Mr. Bruhn, pressing his wife's hand fondly
as they were being whirled rapidly through the streets of the little
town.

" Home at last," echoed Margaret ; and tears of happiness came
into her eyes as she thought of all that those three little words implied
to her.

How familiar and yet how strange looked the well-remembered
shops and streets as she saw them through her tears! — the same and
yet how different ! There, at the corner of Clemson Row, was the
very archway under which she had taken shelter one wet evening only
a few months ago, when she had come out without her umbrella, and
had not sufficient money in her pocket to pay for a cab. While
now — ! Well, Heaven had been very kind to her, and had given
her far more than she deserved. This was the thought nearest
her heart when the carriage passed through the gates of Brook
Lodge.

Two minutes later they were at the house itself, where, in the well-
lighted hall, housekeeper and waiting-maids and footmen were all
waiting to receive and welcome their new mistress. Mrs. Bruhn
accepted their respectful greetings with the stately courtesy that
became her so well. Then turning to the housekeeper, she said, " Is
not my sister, Mrs. Randolph, here ? Did you not send her the
message ? "

" The message was sent, ma'am, not five minutes after we received

A Guilty Silence. 267

your telegram, but word was brought back that Mrs. Randolph was
out of town."

" Out of town ! " said Mrs. Bruhn in surprise ; adding to herself :
" Probably Trix has gone to Wellingford to see papa. But I wish
she had been here." Then she said aloud, " Send Esther Sarel to
me. I wish to go to my room."

" Esther Sarel, ma'am ! " exclaimed the housekeeper. " Have you
not heard what has happened to her since you went away ? "

" I have heard nothing. To what do you refer ? "

" You are speaking of Esther Sarel," said Mr. Bruhn, coming up at
the moment. " Yes, I have ill news for you respecting her. Come
with me in here," he added, taking her into a side room. " The
matter is a disagreeable one, and I would not mention it to you while
we were away for fear of spoiling your enjoyment. But now the news
can be kept from you no longer."

" Yes, yes, — but what is it that has happened ? " said Margaret
anxiously.

" She was convicted within a week of our going away of stealing a
letter from the post-office — convicted on her own confession — and
sentenced to four months' imprisonment."

The room was only partially lighted, but Mr. Bruhn could see the
deadly whiteness that crept over his wife's face as she listened to his
words. She gave a little sigh when he had done, and would have
fallen to the ground had he not thrown his arms round her in time to
prevent her. He carried her to the sofa, and rang the bell violently.
" Your mistress has fainted," he said to the housekeeper who came
in. " This news about the girl Esther Sarel has been too much for
her."

Consciousness came back to Margaret after a time. She opened
her eyes and gazed dreamily around. Her husband was holding one
of her hands, and looking fondly down upon her. A faint, wintry
smile flickered for a moment over her face as her eyes met those of
Mr. Bruhn. "Is it all true what you told me about Esther ? or did
I only dream it ? "

" It is quite true, Madge, dear, I am sorry to say."

" Send that woman out of the room," she whispered. Then, when
the housekeeper was gone, she added, " Sit down close by me, and
tell me how it all happened."

So Mr. Bruhn sat down beside her, and still holding one of her
hands in his, he narrated to her such particulars of the affair as he
had gathered from the newspapers. " But the strangest feature of
the case," he went on to say, " seems to me to lie in the fact of the
letter having been hidden away in a secret drawer in your casket.
She must have lighted on such a hiding-place by accident when
cleaning the casket, or examining it out of curiosity. Don't you
think so ? "

" Yes, by accident, certainly," assented Margaret huskily.

R 2

268 A Guilty Silence.

" The fact of choosing such a place in which to deposit the letter
betrays, to my thinking, an amount of cunning on her part that could
hardly have been expected by any one who knew her. The only
good feature of the case seems to me her frank confession and instant
acknowledgment of her guilt the moment she was charged with having
stolen the letter."

" Who was it, in the first instance, that so accused her ? "

*' Dawkins, the superintendent of police. When your stolen casket
was taken to him at the station, he, too, discovered the secret of the
false bottom, or secret drawer, or whatever it was ; and there he
found the letter, which he knew, from other sources of information,
to have been stolen. He at once went up to Irongate House, and
there, confronted with the girl Sarel, he was not long in eliciting the
truth. By the bye, Madge, dear, it would have been a curious thing
if they had accused you of purloining the letter, as they might not
unreasonably have done, seeing that it was found hidden away in a
piece of youi property. But forgive me ! I see that I have pained
you."

" No, no ! It is Esther, poor child, for whom I am pained," said
Margaret, squeezing her husband's hand. " Tell me again. What
did they do to her ? What sentence did they pass upon her ? "

" She was sentenced to four months' imprisonment."

" To four months' imprisonment ! Poor, poor child ! " Margaret
lay back, with shut eyes, and a face as white as that of some marble
effigy on a tomb, brooding in silence for several minutes over the
news just told her.

" Robert," she said at last, turning her black eyes full upon her
husband, " I want you to do me a favour. I want you to procure
me an order of admission to see Esther to-morrow."

" The county goal, Margaret, is not a place to which I should like
you to go, even as a visitor. The girl's term of imprisonment will
be at an end in about three weeks ; had you not better wait till that
time, and see her when she comes out of prison ? "

" Oh, Robert ! I cannot wait ; I cannot let a single day go over
without seeing her. The girl has neither father nor mother, has no
one in the world but me who will interest themselves about her. I
must see her to-morrow, or I shall never forgive myself."

" Well, dear, since you are so entetee about it, of course I give way,
and will procure you the requisite order. I don't know whether you
are aware of the fact, but the county gaol is at Ackworthing, twelve
miles from this place, and it is there that she is confined."

" Half an hour's journey by rail," said Margaret. " Scarcely so far
as going from one end of London to the other."

"There is no railway to Ackworthing," said Mr. Bruhn. "That,
however, can be easily obviated by my driving you over in the
wagonette."

" You are very, very kind. But I must see Esther alone, abso-

A Guilty Silence. 269

lutely alone. There must be no gaol official by when we meet.
That, too, you can arrange for me ; can you not, dear ? "

" I will try ; although a meeting such as you speak of is in
contravention of prison regulations and discipline."

" Again, thanks. And now leave me for a little while. Late as it
is, I know you have some letters that you want to attend to. I will
await your return here ; and don't let any of the servants come in
unless I ring. I feel one of my bad headaches coming on, and at
such times I am best alone."

So Mr. Bruhn, having spread his travelling-rug over her, stooped
and kissed her, and then went.

It was not headache, but heartache, that Margaret Bruhn was
suffering from. Four months' imprisonment ! Those were the words
that she kept repeating to herself times without number. She — she,
Margaret Bruhn — ought at that very moment to have been in prison,
ought to have been undergoing the sentence which another was
undergoing in her stead. At the first words of explanation she had
comprehended the sacrifice made by Esther ; and before the nobility
of such an act her own soul seemed to dwarf and shrink into in-
significance. What had she done that any one should so sacrifice
themselves for her ? Nothing — absolutely nothing — save a few acts
of charity, such as, in England, are common almost as the sun. But
was it not her duty, now that she had come back before the sentence
passed upon Esther had been carried out in its entirety, to abrogate
that sentence, and set Esther free by confessing that she alone was
the guilty person ? Clearly that, and that alone, was her duty. But
her whole being shrank back appalled at the thought of such a con-
fession. She said to herself that she could decide upon no course of
action till she should have seen Esther. If Esther, after what she
had already undergone, found the burden too heavy to bear any
longer ; if, even now, she demanded to be cleared in the eyes of the
world ; then, in such a case, the fatal confession must be made, and
she must take Esther's place as a felon. But, in the event of Esther
insisting that her sacrifice should be carried out to the end, and
thoroughly accomplished, then — but this was a thought that she
would not work out to its issue. The morrow would determine
everything. To-night she could do nothing save torment herself with
the thought of evils that might possibly never come to pass, or flatter
herself with delusive hopes that, even now, the fruits of her one crime
would never be brought home to her.

At the breakfast-table Mr. Bruhn set down his wife's pale looks to
her headache of the previous night, which she now assured him was
quite gone. And, as her eyes were very bright this morning, and her
smile seemed to have no trace of melancholy left in it, and as she
talked with her usual animation on twenty different topics, he saw no
reason to doubt her word ; and he pleased himself with thinking that
his ill news of the past night had not cut so deeply into her mind as

2/0 A Guilty Silence.

he at one time feared it would have done. It was arranged that the
carriage which was to convey them to Ackworthing should be at
the door by one o'clock, and then Mr. Bruhn went about his morning's
business. Margaret spent her morning at the piano, playing one
elaborate piece after another, as if striving to keep her thoughts from
running too persistently in the one channel into which they would
keep returning again and again in spite of all her efforts to the
contrary.

Mr. Bruhn came in to luncheon at half-past twelve, and when that
was over they started. The day was bright and frosty, and under
happier circumstances, Margaret would have enjoyed the ride greatly.
But how was it possible for her to enjoy it to-day, seeing that every
few minutes this ugly question would intrude itself into her thoughts,
" Shall I come back with my husband, or shall I sleep to-night in
Ackworthing gaol ? "

The carriage was left at an hotel in the town, and Mr. Bruhn and
his wife took their way to the prison on foot. A hearse-like van,
laden with prisoners, drove up just as they reached the entrance.
Margaret shuddered as the great gates of the prison opened to receive
it, and the dull, heavy clash of bolts and bars as they fell back to
their places, sounded to her like the knell of her own doom. The
governor of the gaol received Mr. and Mrs. Bruhn with the utmost
courtesy, and ushered them into a pleasant little sitting-room. After
a delay of five minutes, a female warder came to announce that the
prisoner whom Mrs. Bruhn had come to see was waiting to receive
her. Margaret left her husband talking to the governor. Mr. Bruhn
told her laughingly to be careful that she did not get locked up by
mistake, and that he should not give her one second over half an hour
without going in search of her.

What Mr. Bruhn had told his wife with respect to the sentence
passed upon Esther Sarel was quite correct. At the sessions she
pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to four months' imprisonment.
Miss Easterbrook and Mrs. Randolph had been twice to Ackworthing
to see her. They were her only visitors, and they had seen her merely
in the regulation-room, with an iron screen between themselves and
her, and a prison matron within hearing of every word.

To Esther the prison had not seemed so much a place of punish-
ment as a refuge. Having confessed to the world that she was guilty
of a certain crime, she wanted, for a time at least, to escape from all
in that world to whom she was known. She had bruised her soul,
and she hungered for quiet and solitude till she should have healed
herself in some measure of her hurt. She cried a little when they cut
off her hair, but after that time, whatever she might suffer in secret,
none of the prison officials ever saw her otherwise than sedately
cheerful, and anxious to fulfil, to the minutest letter, the simple prison
tasks that were set her to do. It was a great relief to her, as her
mind then was, to have everything arranged for her, after the orderly

A Guilty Silence. 271

prison fashion which knows no change from one year's end to another ;
to be told when she must eat and when she must work, when she
must get up and when she must lie down ; to be, in short, relieved
from the care and responsibility of her own actions, and have merely
to obey the will of others. And Esther found that to obey well was
all that was demanded at her hands, and that every one treated her
with as much kindness as the discipline of the place would admit of,
when they perceived how ready and willing she was to carry out all
the stereotyped rules, and that no violent outbreak or breach of prison
decorum was to be apprehended at her hands. Her utter seclusion
from the world, and the quiet, orderly mode of her life, had not been
without their effect upon her wounded spirit, soothing and calming it,
and lifting her thoughts above the petty troubles of this life to a con-
templation of that higher life which seems so far away amid the din
and clamour of the world, but which is yet so close at hand that any
one who wills may touch it. That deepest wound of all, the one
caused in her heart by the desertion of Silas, was still very, very
tender, and often bled afresh in the dim watches of the night, when
she could not sleep, and all the vast prison was silent as a grave.
Then it sometimes came to her to ask herself why she had done this
thing, why she had irretrievably shattered her own life to save that of
another ? and at such times her anguish was almost greater than she
could bear. But the dawn always came with healing on its wings ;
and she would arise, and begin the duties of another day with the
spirit of self-sacrifice strong upon her ; feeling steadfast in her belief
that what she had done was the right thing for her to do, and that
none other was possible.

Mrs. Bruhn, when ushered into the room where the prisoner was
already waiting to receive her, stood for a moment or two in mute
surprise, scarcely believing that it was Esther Sarel whom she saw
before her. The prison-dress, the close-clipped hair, and more than
all, perhaps, the changed expression of the face — spiritualized by
trouble, refined by sadness — caused Margaret at the first glance to
mistake her for a stranger. But Esther's voice broke the spell.

" Miss Margaret ! " she said, and it was Esther's smile that accom-
panied the words.

Then the door of the room was quietly shut, and the two women
were left alone.

"Yes, Esther, it is I," said Mrs. Bruhn, and the heart-weary sigh
that accompanied the words told Esther more than the words them-
selves.

Esther came forward, still smiling, and would have taken Margaret's
hand and have pressed it to her lips. But Margaret wound her long,
slender arms about the girl, and pressed her to her bosom, and kissed
her twice upon the forehead very tenderly.

" Oh, Miss Margaret, you must not do that ! " said Esther, her face
all blushes.

272 A Guilty Silence.

"Must I not?" said Margaret sadly. "You are right, child;
there is pollution in the kiss of one like me. Hush ! Not a word.
I know what you would say. Once I was your mistress, and you
were my servant. Granted. But now you have lifted yourself to
such a height above me that I can never hope to be your equal. I
have put manacles on my soul, and made a slave of it for ever."

Esther began to look frightened, and as if she thought Margaret
was going out of her mind. " Be not afraid, dear, I am not quite
mad yet," said Mrs. Bruhn with another caress. " Or, if I am, there's
reason in my madness, though you, simple heart, may fail to see it."
Then, holding Esther out at arm's-length, she looked at her slowly
from head to foot. " And this is how / shall look to-morrow ! " she
said.

" You, Miss Margaret ! Great Heaven ! You will never look
like this ! "

" Esther, I did not know anything of this business till late last
night. They had kept it from me, out of kindness, as they thought,
not knowing what a fearful interest I had in it. You have been
shut up here for the last three months, while I have been leading an
ignorantly happy life far away. And oh, Esther, I was so happy !
Really and truly happy, almost for the first time in my life. But I
lost no time, did I, dear, in coming here after they told me ? And
now I am ready to take your place."

" To take my place. Miss Margaret ! I do not understand you,"
said Esther in a tone of dismay.

"And yet my words are simple. You, who are innocent, have
borne my burden long enough. Cast it off. Let me take it upon
my own shoulders from this time forth and for ever."

" Hush ! Miss Margaret. Pray do not talk in that mad way," said
Esther with lowered voice. " Who knows but that these walls may
have ears ? For my sake, do please be more careful."

" For your sake ! " said Margaret with a bitter smile. " For your
sake I ought to proclaim the truth aloud to the four corners of the
earth. Esther Sarel, what have I done that you should take the
burden of my guilt on to your shoulders and blast your own good
name for ever ? "

" What have you done. Miss Margaret ? You have done that for
me and mine that I could never forget were I to live a thousand
years. At last an occasion came for me to show my gratitude. I
accepted that occasion, and I am — here."

" What I did for you and yours was merely what five Christians
out of six would do for any one in need of it. What you have done
for me is something that cannot be measured by the rules of common
gratitude ; something — oh ! I am at a loss for words ; " and she beat
her foot impatiently on the floor.

" Please do not speak in that way of what I have done," said
Esther sadly. " It seems far more to you from the height at which

A Guilty Silence. 273

you look down upon such things than it does to me who was
differently brought up My time here will soon be over now, and in
a month or two it will all seem like a dream of the past."

" Oh ! that I could look upon it in that light ! " said Margaret.

" Please to try, Miss Margaret, and you will soon do so."

" But I want you to understand, Esther, that I have come here
to-day with a definite purpose — with the intention of proclaiming
your innocence and my own guilt."

" Oh, Miss Margaret, but you must do nothing of the kind,"
pleaded Esther earnestly ; and tears came into her eyes for the first
time that day. " To do that would render what I have done of no
avail, and do no good either for you or me. The worst of it is past
and gone, and what is yet to come matters little. Think, Miss
Margaret, think ! To go through it all again ! Why, it would kill
you and kill me too. I know you would die, and I — my heart would
just break ! "

" Hush, child, hush ! You don't know how your words stab me.
Heaven help me ! for I am very, very weak."

" Then, consider again. Miss Margaret. You are married now.
Your husband — "

" It was of him I was thinking more than of myself," said
Margaret.

"You mus^ think of him. You musf save him at every risk,"
pleaded Esther. "All that you have to do. Miss Margaret, is just to
hold your tongue. Everything will then go on in proper course. I
shall leave this place in three weeks, and will at once set out for a
part of the country where I am unknown. The secret will rest
between you and me alone, and you may be sure that I will never
divulge it. Only do this, and you will save your husband's happiness
and your own good name at the same time."

" Esther, Esther ! you tempt me beyond my strength," said Mar-
garet, with a wan smile.

Esther was about to enforce her plea still further, when a knock
was heard on the door, and next moment the head of the matron was
intruded into the room. " Madam, the time was up five minutes
ago," she said, in the most respectful of tones ; and she ranged herself
inside the room close to the door. " Be silent for your husband's
sake," whispered Esther, with her finger on her lip.

It is possible that the matron was slightly scandalized when she
saw the fashionably-dressed Mrs. Bruhn fling her arms round the
prisoner's neck and kiss her as affectionately as though they were
sisters ; but, if so, she kept all tokens of surprise to herself; and next
moment Mrs. Bruhn passed swiftly out of the room, and was received
in the corridor by a second matron, who conducted her to where her
husband was waiting her return.

2/4 A Guilty Silence.

CHAPTER XL.

MISSING.

Mrs. Bruhn pleaded a headache to her husband as they left the
prison after her interview with Esther Sarel, and all the way home she
lay back in the carriage with shut eyes and white face, communing
darkly with herself. Over dinner she so far schooled herself as to
chat quietly on sundry indifferent topics ; but when the meal was
over, and Mr. Bruhn gone to the mill, she went off at once to her
own rooms, and did not issue therefrom till a late hour next morning.

She came down feverish and unrefreshed. All through the dark
hours she had seen a vision of Esther Sarel in her prison dress, with
close-cropped hair, locked up alone in a little white-washed cell, and
it was a vision that banished sleep. If for a moment or two she fell
into a half sleep, it seemed to her that it was she, Margaret Bruhn,
who was the locked-up inmate of the cell, that Esther was the gaoler
who had her in charge, and that from some strange middle distance
her husband looked on with an approving smile, and seemed to
felicitate himself on being well rid of such a wretch. But when she
woke up with a start from these and such-like distempered fancies,
Esther's pale earnest face and melancholy eyes rose before her again,
as they really w^ere, and her soul was made bitter with remorse.

To this feeling, which did not leave her as the night left her, but
pursued her through the day, a new and terrible anxiety was quickly
added.

Her sister was missing from home.

To Margaret it seemed somewhat strange that neither her sister nor
Dr. Randolph was there to welcome her on her return from her
wedding-tour, and that no explanation of their absence had been
vouchsafed her. But when she had ascertained, from inquiry, that
both the surgeon and his wife were out of town, and that no one
seemed to know exactly either where they were or when they would
return, she concluded that they had suddenly been called away on
business of a private nature, and would probably be home again in a
few days at the furthest.

The second day passed — that on which Margaret went to Ack-
worthing — and, much as she longed to see Trix, she was glad to be
left alone till her mind should have had time to assimilate itself in
some measure to that strange new condition of things which had come
about while she was away.

About half-past ten on the morning of the third day Dr. Randolph
arrived at Brook Lodge, and was shown into the presence of Mrs.
Bruhn. With a little exclamation of gladness, Margaret rose to greet
him, but the smile died from off her lips when she saw the utterly-
wretched and woe-begone expression of his face.

" Have you seen Beatrice, or do you know where she is ? " he

A Guilty Silence. 275

demanded huskily, and he stared round the room as though he
suspected Margaret of having hidden away his wife on purpose.

" I have certainly not seen Trix since my return, neither do I know
where she is," answered Margaret. " But why do you ask ? "

" Because she left her home four days ago, and has not since been
heard of."

Margaret rang the bell peremptorily. " Send to the mill and tell
Mr. Bruhn that he is wanted here without a moment's delay."

" Is it four days since I lost her ? " asked Hugh, passing his hand
wearily across his forehead. " Yes, it must be four days ago ; to-day
is Friday, and it was on Monday that she went ; though. Heaven help
me ! it has all seemed like one long wretched day since the moment
I made the discovery, and I have kept no note of time." He rested
his elbows on his knees and hid his face in his hands ; and Margaret
could see the tears trickling slowly through his fingers.

The breakfast equipage was still on the table, and, although Mar-
garet's heart was quaking with a great dread at the evil tidings which
had come thus suddenly upon her, the details of which she had not
yet heard, her woman's instinct told her that the man before her stood
in need of succour at her hands, were it even succour of the simplest
kind. She waited quietly till he had overcome his feelings in some
measure, and then she poured out and offered him a cup of tea. He
drank it with avidity, for he was half famished ; and just as he finished
it Mr. Bruhn came into the room.

He saw at once from the faces of both that something more than
ordinary had happened. " But where is Beatrice ? " he asked, as he
shook hands with Hugh.

" My wife is lost," said Hugh, squeezing Mr. Bruhn's hand very
hard, while his lips quivered with the emotion which he was ashamed
to show, yet could not altogether suppress.

" Lost ? Impossible ! " said Mr. Bruhn.

" Now that Robert is here, you must tell us all the particulars,"
said Margaret. And with that she drew a chair close up to Hugh's,
and took one of his languid, nerveless hands tenderly in hers. She
had assumed a calmness of demeanour which she was far from feeling ;
but Hugh was so evidently worn out with anxiety and fatigue, that,
had she herself given way to his mood, it was plain that he would
have broken down entirely.

" It was on Monday that she left home," began Hugh. " I myself
went from home on that day. I started for London by the 2.40
train that afternoon. My wife knew that I was going and where I
was going ; and we parted on the most affectionate terms. It
was Tuesday evening when I got back home, and my first inquiry
was naturally for Beatrice. The servants stared at me when I asked
them where she was, and answered that they thought she had gone
with me on the previous afternoon.

" Further inquiry elicited the fact that Beatrice, plainly dressed

2/6 A Guilty Silence.

and thickly veiled, had left the house five minutes after my departure
on the preceding day. In some way which they could not explain,
the servants had got the idea into their heads that we were gone out
of town together, and had consequently felt no surprise at their
mistress's absence. I was utterly dumfoundered, although I made
light of the affair before the servants, saying that Mrs. Randolph
must have gone to Wellingford, on a visit to her father, and suc-
ceeded in half persuading myself that such must really be the case.
First of all, however, I hastened up here, thinking that you might
have got back a day before your time, and that Trix, finding home
dull while I was away, had elected to stay at Brook Lodge till my
return. Of course I found no trace of her here, and you were not
expected till next day. I then took the first train to Wellingford,
feeling certain that I should find her there. But Mr. Davenant had
neither seen nor heard anything of her. After arranging that he
should send me a telegram in case of anything turning up, I hurried
back home, only to find myself as far as ever from the object of my
search. After having obtained from my old housekeeper something
like a description of my wife's appearance when she last left home, I
took Dawkins, the superintendent of police, into my confidence, who
at once set about making a series of private inquiries, which resulted
in his ascertaining that a lady, closely veiled, and dressed as we knew
my wife to have been dressed, took a ticket for London, by the
2.40 train on Monday — by the very train, in fact, by which I
myself travelled up to town. But beyond that point all our inquiries
failed utterly. None of the London ofiicials who attended the 2.40
train on its arrival could recollect any such passenger as we wanted to
trace ; and whether Trix really went through to London, or got out
at some station short of that point, was impossible for us to determine.
Dawkins and I did not leave London till this morning, and we came
back just as wise as we went. Before leaving, we put the case into
the hands of the authorities in Scotland Yard ; and in to-morrow's
Times there will be an appeal to ' Beatrice R., late Beatrice D.,'
requesting that she will communicate with her friends, and explain
her reasons for leaving home. And now you know as much of the
matter as I do myself."

He ended with a weary sigh, and both Mr. Bruhn and Margaret
sat in silence for a minute or two, brooding over the strange news
they had just heard.

Long and earnest was the consultation of the three that morning.
It was finally arranged for the present, at least, the matter should be
kept a profound secret from every one except Mrs. Sutton ; and that
Mrs. Randolph's absence from home should be accounted for to the
servants and others on the score of a visit to her father at Welling-
ford. It was just possible that the affair, dark and mysterious
as it now looked, might work itself out to a happy issue, in which
case it would be better that the world should never know

A Guilty Silence. 277

that Mrs. Randolph had ever had occasion to leave her husband's
roof.

On quitting Brook Lodge, Dr. Randolph went to make some further
arrangements with the friend who had been attending to his patients
for the last few days. At present he felt himself utterly unfitted
for the requirements of his practice, and everything pertaining to it
must still be left in the hands of another. Having arranged this
matter to his satisfaction, he went home to try and obtain a few
hours of the rest he so much needed, for he had scarcely slept at all
since he knew of Trix's disappearance. In the afternoon he again
went to Brook Lodge, and in the evening he went up by mail train to
London. Nowhere did there seem any rest for him. After a few
hours in London, he wanted to be back at Helsingham ; and once
there, and no tidings of his lost wife yet to hand, he longed to be
back in London, where the last trace of her seemed to have vanished
amid the innumerable throng of the great city. He had a pre-
sentiment that she was hidden from him somewhere amid the mighty
London desert, and he paced the streets hour after hour, by daylight
and by gaslight, nowhere finding rest for the sole of his foot. But
day passed after day till a fortnight had come and gone, but neither
in London, nor in Helsingham, nor in Wellingford, was there the
slightest clue to the missing Trix.

At the end of a fortnight. Dr. Randolph went back home, and
did not leave it again. He resumed his practice, which had begun
to suffer greatly through his absence, and tried to forget that he had
ever had a wife.

The flight of Beatrice from home was a circumstance as entirely
unexpected by Charlotte Heme as by Hugh Randolph. Charlotte's
fine instinct had told her that latterly there had been a jarring chord
somewhere between the young surgeon and his wife, although Hugh
himself had failed to discover as much. In her own mind she put
down this touch of discord to Trix's discovery of the secret under-
standing that existed between Hugh and herself, and to the arrival of
certain letters respecting which no word was said to Trix, while
Charlotte was made free of their contents from the first. By what
means Trix had made these discoveries, Charlotte could not opine,
neither did she greatly care. It was sufficient for her purpose that
the discoveries had been made, and that Trix was rendered unhappy
thereby. Charlotte was scheming how to make her still more
unhappy by a more persistent fingering of the one discordant note of
her wedded life, when her little spider-like weavings were brought to
a sudden finish by Trix's flight, and she had to begin afresh on
another and a much more elaborate web. Her belief had been the
same as that of the servants, — that Mrs. Randolph had gone to
London with her husband, Hugh having changed his mind, and
asked her to go at the last moment ; for which change of purpose

2/8 A Guilty Silence.

Charlotte, in her own mind, called him a fool many times over. She
Vv-as fully acquainted with the business that was taking Hugh to
London, but all her miserable little schemes would be destroyed if
Trix were taken into her husband's confidence and made as wise as
herself. That Trix had been so taken into her husband's confidence
she firmly believed, and she was musing bitterly in her own room
upon the failure of all her \^Tetched little attempts to breed a fatal
difference between the two, when Hugh came back alone from
London, and asked for his wife. .

When Charlotte thoroughly understood that Trix had left home
without her husband's cognizance, and when a day and a night had
gone over without bringing any trace of the fugitive, she laughed and
wept in the solitude of her own rooms, and clapped her hands, and
danced wild elfish dances, for very glee at the thought of what had
come to pass. The scheming of years might not have done as much
as her hated rival had done for her at one coi^J^. And even if she had
succeeded in achieving such a result as the separation of husband and
wife, was is not more than probable that she would have been obliged
to sacrifice herself in the effort ? But as matters now were, her position
in the house was still impregnable ; she possessed the unlimited con-
fidence of her cousin Hugh ; and watched no longer by Trix's coldly
suspicious eyes — and Charlotte felt that of late they had become very
suspicious — she was at liberty to plot and plan, unsuspected by any
one, against the return of that warm-hearted but impulsive young
person to the home she had chosen to desert.

That Trix would try to come back, that she would make an efifort
of some kind to regain the position she had so foolishly forfeited by
going away, Charlotte did not for one moment doubt. Such being
the case, the question was. What direction would Trix's efforts take,
and what ought Charlotte to do so as to nullify such efforts as far as
possible ? Should Trix go to Wellingford or to Brook Lodge, and
open negotiations with her husband either through her father or her
sister, Charlotte's influence over such negotiations would be ver)'
limited indeed — so limited, in fact, as to be hardly perceptible. But
should Trix choose to communicate with her husband by letter, the
case would be very different. By means of a little management, it
was quite possible to prevent any such letters from reaching the person
for whom they were intended.

Although Charlotte's eyesight had improved very much of late, it
was still far from being strong enough to enable her to read either a
book or a letter. In order, therefore, to stop any letters that might
be written by Mrs. Randolph before they could reach the hands
ot Hugh, it became necessary to call in the aid of a second person.
The only second person upon whose secrecy she could rely was Tib
Not that Tib was particularly discreet or reticent under ordinary
circumstances, but Charlotte knew so well how to work upon her
superstitious fears as to feel confident that the girl would not

A Guilty Silence, 279

dare to break a promise made as she intended that it should be
made.

" I want you to stop till ten o'clock this evening," said Charlotte to
Tib one afternoon.

" Yes, Miss Charlotte," answered Tib meekly, and then she pulled
a horrible face by way of some slight indemnity to herself for the loss
of her evening.

Charlotte was very gracious that afternoon, and Tib was in high
favour. They partook of tea together by the cosy little fire in Char-
lotte's room. After that, Tib read aloud for a couple of hours from
Foxe's ' Book of Martyrs,' a work which had a strange fascination for
Charlotte. Then Charlotte sat down to her harp, and played and
sang one sacred piece after another till Tib's heart seemed to melt
within her, and she felt how wicked she must be not to be fonder of
going to church on Sundays. About nine o'clock Charlotte left the
room for a quarter of an hour.

" Tib, do you love me ? " she asked with startling abruptness when
she came back.

" Yes, Miss Charlotte, I love you ve-ry, ve-ry much ! " whined ready
Tib.

" Lying little wretch ! I know well that you hate me," exclaimed
Charlotte. " I know that you talk about me and my business to
dozens of people ; that you would leave me to-morrow if you thought
it was in the slightest degree to your interest to do so. Your affection
for me is worth as much as that, and no more. Therefore, I have
decided to-night to make you take an oath never to reveal to a living
soul a certain thing that I want you to do for me. Do you hear ? "

" Oh, yes. Miss Charlotte ; and I'll take the oath with pleasure."

" Will you ? " said Charlotte grimly. " Then follow me."

Tib, as in duty bound, followed her mistress up the dark staircase
into the still darker loft. With this loft the girl was tolerably familiar,
but all her experience of it had been daylight experience, and it seemed
a different place after nightfall. The skeleton, too, at the head of
the stairs was by no means a stranger to her ; she had even shaken
hands with him on two or three occasions, and familiarity in her case
had not been without its proverbial effect. But Captain Bones by
night, and Captain Bones by day, were two very different personages ;
and a cold shiver crept down Miss Tib's spine as she followed her
conductress into the loft.

Charlotte had moved the skeleton and its case a few yards away
from the staircase, and, taking the shrinking girl by the wrist, she drew
her close up to the grisly sentinel.

" The captain offers you his hand. Take it," she said ; and with
that she joined the hands of the dead and the living. Tib shivered
with fright, but said nothing.

The night outside was very dark, but inside the loft it was thick
blackness. Not the faintest outline of any person or object was

28o A Guilty Silence.

visible ; only the great square disk of skylight was dimly discernible in
the roof.

" Now say as I say, following me word for word," said Charlotte.
And with that, she dictated a form of oath which Tib repeated after
her in a trembling voice. It was an oath that called down upon her
head, in case she should break it, a whole string of frightful ills.
" Now say, ' I swear it,' " added Charlotte, by way of orthodox finish.

" I swear it," murmured Tib.

" Now you may go, little crocodile, and remember to keep your
oath. Captain Bones wishes you don soi'r, which in English means a
good riddance. Go ! "

In one of Charlotte's drawers lay the envelope of a letter which
Trix had addressed to her husband before their marriage. At the
time he received the letter, Charlotte was sitting near him, and his
exclamation of pleasure told her at once by whom it was written.
When he opened the letter, he flung the envelope aside in his usual
careless fashion, and it fell into Charlotte's lap. What feeling it was
that induced her to preserve it, she would have been at a loss to
explain ; but she did preserve it, putting it away in one of her drawers
among sundry odds and ends that were of little use to any one, and
it was now brought out to serve a purpose such as she had never
dreamt of at the time.

Trix's writing had a character of its own, and Charlotte knew this.
It differed in several particulars from the ordinary run of young ladies'
caligraphy, and could not readily be mistaken by any one at all
acquainted with it for the writing of another person. On the morning
after Tib had been bound to secrecy, she was at Charlotte's rooms by
half-past eight o'clock. Charlotte took the envelope out of the drawer
and bade her examine it carefully.

" Could you recognise that writing again if you were to see another
letter addressed by the person who wrote that ? " asked Charlotte.

" I am positive that I could, Miss Charlotte," answered the ready
Tib ; and Charlotte, who knew how quick and observant the girl was
in many ways, did not doubt her ability to do so.

The postman's knock Avas heard at the usual time, and scarcely had
he quitted the door before Tib was sent to fetch whatever letters he
might have left in the box. There were some four or five in all.
".Now take these letters," said Charlotte, " and look carefully over
them, and tell me whether any of them are directed in the same hand
as the envelope I showed you ; " and Charlotte laid the envelope again
before Tib, so that there might be no blunder of memory.

There was no such letter, Tib declared, on that first morning.
Charlotte took down to the breakfast-room such letters as there were,
feeling tolerably satisfied that Tib was too acute to make any mistake
in the matter.

Tib waited upon the afternoon post in the same way as she had
waited upon the morning's, and day after day the same process was

A Guilty Silence, 281

repeated. Sometimes there were no letters, sometimes there was only
one ; but whether they were few or many in number, in no single
instance was a letter allowed to reach Hugh Randolph till it had
passed through the hands of Tib and Charlotte. At length one
morning, about a week after Mrs. Randolph's departure from home,
Tib's sharp eyes picked out a certain letter, on which she pounced
with a little exclamation of triumph.

" This one is in the same writing as the envelope," she said.

Charlotte's hands trembled slightly as she took the letter. " You
are sure on the point ? You are not making any mistake ? " she said.

" Quite sure, Miss Charlotte. The writing of both is as much
alike as two peas."

" What postmark does the letter bear ? "

Tib scrutinized the letter. " It has London stamped on it," she
said at last.

"That will do. Give it to me with the others," said Charlotte.
She then took the whole of them, and went down to the breakfast-
room as usual, but outside the door she smuggled the one special
letter into her pocket. The remainder she placed on Hugh's corner
of the table, ready for him when he should come in to breakfast.
When the meal was over, and Hugh gone again, she took the letter
out of her pocket, and stuffed it between the bars of the grate without
breaking the seal. She did not care to ascertain the contents ; she
was satisfied with the knowledge that she had destroyed the first link
of communication between the runaway wife and her husband. The
second link must be watched for as carefully ; perhaps in time the
chain might be severed entirely.

Six days later, the second letter was singled out by Tib. This,
likewise, was kept back by Charlotte, and afterwards burnt. Again
there seemed to be something worth living for. The dull, blank
monotony that of late had shut in and compassed her life as with a
high wall, whose limits she might never hope to overpass, had been
suddenly broken ; and trodden-down hopes, faded and buried months
ago, like spring flowers at a touch of sunshine, began to feel the
warmth of a new life stir within them. Her cousin Hugh was married ;
that was a fact that could by no means be got over. But his wife had
left him ; and if Charlotte, by any hidden means, could so far widen
the breach as to hinder Trix from ever coming back, would not she,
Charlotte, come again, in time, to be as much to him as she had been
before that white-faced witch stepped in between them and stole her
cousin's heart away ? Would not the old, familiar intimacy gradually
grow up between them again as though it had never been broken,
with herself once more at the head of the household, and no fear of
any smooth-spoken intruder ever again coming to steal the power out
of her hands ? There was a time, and that not very long ago, when
all Charlotte's dearest hopes had centred in the expectation of one
day becoming Hugh Randolph's wife. But that delicious dream was

VOL. Liv. s

282 A Guilty Silence.

over for ever. She could not hope to be anything more to him now
than a dear sister might have been, and she had so far schooled her
heart as to believe that contentment, and even a quiet sort of happiness,
might be found in the enactment of such a character, only — and this
was imperative — no third person, no schemer of her own sex, must
come between herself and the brother of her choice. From the
moment she knew of Hugh's engagement to Beatrice Davenant, the
secret thought of Charlotte's heart had been how best to revenge her-
self on her successful rival. This was a thought that she had never
let sleep ; that she had nursed continually, turning over one scheme
after another in the secret chambers of her brain, but leaving it to
time and opportunity to determine which of them she should finally
adopt and elaborate to the fulfilment of her dark purpose. But all
this was changed now. Her rival had voluntarily abandoned her
position ; she had made a fatally false move ; and before long,
Charlotte hoped to have it in her power to cry checkmate and claim
the game.

CHAPTER XLI.

A FRIEND IN NEED.

It had been dark for more than an hour when the 2.40 train from
Helsingham reached the London terminus. The carriages had scarcely
come to a stand before Mrs. Randolph was on the platform, and
looking for her husband among the crowd. She quickly caught sight
of him, but she kept sufficiently in the background to prevent any
recognition on his- part, although it is questionable whether he would
have known her, unless he had met her plump in the face, under her
simple disguise of a dark winsey dress and a thick veil. She saw
Hugh hail a hansom and jump in, and then she tried to secure a cab
in order to follow him. But all the cabs were already engaged, and
one or two of the drivers to whom she made a timid proffer of double
fare, only shook their heads and said they couldn't do it. The proba-
bility of losing Hugh seemed so imminent, that she hurried towards
the gate through which the cabs were rolling rapidly one after another,
determined to risk everything and stop her husband, rather than be
left alone in that great, desolate station, a hundred miles from any one
whom she knew. As she was pressing her way through the crowd,
she felt some one's hand in her pocket. Instinctively her own hand
went down, and grasped the intruder by the wrist. But the thief was
not to be so readily taken. With a sudden wrench, and a push that
nearly overturned Trix, he broke away from her grasp, and darting
under the horse's heads, in a moment was lost to view. It took
Trix a minute or two to recover herself, and Hugh's cab had passed
out of the gates some time before she reached them.

Trix would not believe that she had missed Hugh till the very last
cab had left the station. Even then she lingered. In fact, she knew

A Guilty Silence. 283

not what to do, nor whither to go. After a time, she ventured a Httle
way into the streets, but only to hurry back to the station in a short
time, as to a harbour of refuge. She was almost an entire stranger to
London. The bustle and noise of the streets confounded her ; and
one or two coarse remarks, which her good looks elicited from passers-
by, frightened her back to the entrance-hall, where lounging porters
stared at her, or so she imagined, as if they were quite aware that she
had run away from home.

When she found herself on the platform again, it was on the depar-
ture side. A large time-table on the wall attracted her attention.
Almost mechanically she went up to it, and her eyes wandered through
the columns of figures till she found out at what hour the next train
left for Helsingham. There would be one in an hour and a half.
She would go back home, on that j^oint she was already decided ; and
if Hugh should discover she had been away, and should question her,
she would tell him frankly the object of her journey, and how she had
failed. Would it not, indeed, be better to tell her husband that she
had been to London, and why she had been there, without waiting to
be questioned ? Such a step would necessitate a full explanation on
his side — an explanation of the secret understanding between himself
and Charlotte Heme, and of the meaning of that strange letter which
Trix had succeeded in partially deciphering. And should such expla-
nation not be ample and satisfactory, she told herself, for her heart
just then was very sore, she would quit his roof at once, and take
refuge with her father. She wandered disconsolately to and fro on
the platform, meditating these things. The night was cold and gusty,
with occasional heavy showers, and the chill atmosphere of the place
seemed to freeze her very marrow. Now and then she wandered
into the waiting-room, and warmed herself at the fire for a few minutes ;
but there was a restlessness upon her that would not let her stay long
in any one place, and she was soon out again on to the gusty plat-
form, dimly lighted by a few widely-scattered lamps, and looking, so
desolate and deserted was it, like a portion of some vast City of the
Dead. But by-and-by it began to wake into activity. More lamps
were lighted, passengers came straggling in, guards and porters began
to bustle about, and the empty hearse- like carriages were suddenly con-
verted into cosy little boudoirs by the simple process of lighting them up.
The Scotch express was preparing itself for a long night on the road.

The Helsingham train did not start till a quarter of an hour after
the express. To escape the eager, hurrying crowd, Trix sought the
comparative seclusion of the waiting-room, and there stood, looking
through one of the windows with sad incurious eyes. The five
minutes' bell had rung, and nearly all the passengers had shaken
themselves into their places, when Trix's wandering gaze fastened on
two people, a man and a woman, who came out of the booking-ofiice,
crossed the platform, and were shut up together in a first-class com-
partment of the Scotch express.

s 2

284 A Guilty Silence,

The man was Hugh Randolph — her husband. But who was the
woman ?

The very springs of hfe seemed to wither up in Trix's soul as she
gazed. Her breath came back to her with a great gasp, but her face
still kept the unnatural whiteness that had crept over it the moment
she caught sight of her husband's well-known figure. From her
position at the window, every movement of the only two travellers
for whom she had eyes was plainly visible to her, while she herself
ran no risk of being seen. She saw her husband hang up his hat,
and put on his travelling-cap ; she saw him, with every token of
affectionate care, draw a warm plaid round the shoulders of his com-
panion, and place his own rug across her knees. Still the woman by
his side never lifted the veil which hid the whole of her face, except
a very white and rather pointed chin. She was tall and slender ;
Trix could not help noticing that much as she crossed the platform ;
and was certainly not old in years ; while there was about her a touch
of that nameless indefinable grace which is the product of gentle
breeding and careful culture.

A moment later the second bell rang, the engine shrieked, and the
train began to move slowly out of the station. Trix's last glance
at her husband showed him bending forward with a smile on his
face, listening to some remark of his companion. Then train and
platform and people all became like a dim blurred picture, swimming
round before her eyes, and next moment she fell to the ground in a
dead faint.

Trix had a confused recollection afterwards of waking up as from a
short sleep, and seeing a number of strange faces bent wonderingly
over her ; of being placed in a cab, and driven she neither knew nor
cared whither ; but when she thoroughly recovered her senses, she
found herself lying on a sofa in a strange room, with a motherly-
looking middle-aged woman seated by her side, and gently chafing
one of her hands.

" Where am I ? and how did I come here ? " asked Trix feebly.

"You are in my house, dear," answered the woman kindly. "And
here you are welcome to stay till you are quite better. I am a
widow, and my name is Mrs. Clemson. By profession, I am an
artificial flower-maker, and I have eighteen young people in my
employ, every one of them thoroughly respectable. I happened to
be at the station this evening, seeing some one off by train, when I
neard that a young lady had fainted in the waiting-room. I went to
nave a peep, wondering whether it was any one that I knew, for I
know a great many people in London. Well, my dear, I didn't know
you the least bit in the world, but neither did I like the faces of one
or two of the people that were watching you. As you seemed to be
entirely without friends, what did I do but pretend that you were my
niece, and have you put into a cab, and brought you home with me.
You see, I should never have forgiven myself if I had left a pretty

A Guilty Silence, ^85

young creature like you to take your chance among a lot of strangers
in a great railway station ; and it's just as easy for you to communicate
with your friends from my house as from anywhere else. The
moment I set eyes on you, I saw that yours was something more than
an ordinary fainting-fit, or else I should merely have stopped with
you in the waiting-room till you were better, and able to take care of
yourself. But in your case there's something more than that. You
feel very weak and poorly, now don't you ? "

" I do, indeed," answered Trix. " Very weary and very ill."

" Just so," replied Mrs. Clemson, with a nod of satisfaction at her
own foresight in the matter. " To tell you the truth, my dear, I'm
afraid you won't be better either to-morrow or the day after to-
morrow ; and I have told you all this rigmarole about yourself to
save you the trouble of asking questions or bothering your brains as
to who I am, and how you got here."

" You are very, very kind," said Trix gratefully.

" Tut, tut, child ; don't talk in that way," said Mrs. Clemson.
" But before another word is said by either of us, you must just
oblige me by swallowing this drop of beaf-tea, which has been
warming for you against the time you should come to yourself. Nay,
you must really take it. If you don't, I shall think you are getting
worse, and shall at once send for the doctor."

The mention of the word " doctor " brought back all Trix's troubles
in a flood over her mind. She turned and hid her face in the sofa
cushions, and burst into a wild passion of sobs and tears. All Mrs.
Clemson's efforts to soothe her were for a long time unavailing, but
at length her passion died out of itself from thorough exhaustion of
mind and body. Ultimately she was prevailed upon to take a little
refreshment, which seemed to revive her in some measure ; and as
she was now quite calm again, and the hour was growing late,
Mrs. Clemson thought the time had come for her to be be taken into
Trix's confidence.

" And now, dear, what about communicating with your friends ? "
she said ; " for I suppose you live in London."

"I do not live in London, and I have no friends within a
hundred miles of it," said Trix sadly.

" But you are married," said Mrs. Clemson, glancing at the ring on
Trix's finger.

" I am married, but I have no husband."

" Not a widow ? " said Mrs. Clemson, with an added pathos in her
voice.

" No, not a widow," answered Trix. Then she hesitated a moment.
Then she took Mrs. Clemson's hand and went on. " You have been
so very kind to me in my trouble," she said, " that it is only right
that you should know how that trouble has arisen." Then, without
mentioning her name, or where she came from, she went on to tell
her hostess in what way her suspicions had been aroused ; how she

286 A Guilty Silence.

had followed her husband to London, and had lost him in the
confusion at the station ; how, while looking through the window of
the waiting-room, she had seen him come back to the station in the
company of some woman whom she did not know, and how the two
had gone off together by the Scotch express.

" A story that has been told a thousand times before," said Mrs.
Clemson, when Trix had done. " And yet I hardly know how to
advise you. One thing is very evident, — that you will have to stay
here all night, and you are thoroughly welcome to do so. You can
have Eve Warriner's bed. Eve is out of town, and won't be back for
two or three days. It will be time enough in the morning to talk
over your affairs, and decide what will be the best thing for you to
do. And now you had better get off to bed without further delay."

From that bed Beatrice Randolph did not rise for a fortnight.
Mrs. Clemson, when she found her young guest getting so rapidly
worse, sent at once for a doctor ; but all the doctors in the world
could not have stopped the illness that was upon her from running its
course, and for several days Trix lay on the borders of the shadowy
land that divides life from death. During a great part of the time
she was light-headed, or else so prostrated by sickness as to be unable
to think at all. But in all her mental wanderings she never once
alluded to her husband or her wedded life. Nearly always she was
back at school in France, anxious about her lessons, or chattering
French to her playmates. Once or twice she and Margaret were out
walking in the lanes, gathering flowers, and sometimes her father was
an actor in her imaginary dramas, but her husband never. Mrs.
Clemson, during one of her guest's sane moments, gathered from her
the fact that she had both a father and a married sister, and wanted
to write on Trix's behalf to one or both of them. But Trix only said,
" I shall be better in a day or two, and then I will write to them
myself." But the illness proved more tedious than she expected, and
not till she had been fifteen days under Mrs. Clemson's roof was she
sufficiently recovered to be able to sit up and use her pen.

But before this came about, the Eve Warriner spoken of by
Mrs. Clemson on the night of Trix's arrival, had returned home. It
was on the fourth day of Trix's illness that Mrs. Clemson took Eve
into the sick girl's room, saying as she did so, " Here's another friend
come to see you, dear ; and one that will not run away again in a
hurry. This is Eve Warriner — Mrs. Warriner, — about whom I have
spoken to you I don't know how many times. She will take turn
and turn about with me in nursing you ; and surely between us we
shall soon have you well again. Eve is one of the right sort, my
dear, and you may trust her as you have trusted me." So saying,
Mrs. Clemson left the two younger women together.

Eve Warriner was tall and thin, and very fair, with light flaxen hair
and blue eyes. Hers was the face of a woman who had seen much
trouble, and could never quite forget it. There were lines of care

A Guilty Silence. 287

about the eyes and of sadness about the mouth, but in the melancholy
of her face lay one of its greatest charms. She could put on a soft
and seductive manner when she chose that made her seem very
winning, and it was in one of her most winning moods that she now
came forward, and taking Trix's proffered hand tenderly between her
own soft palms she stooped and kissed her on the forehead, and then
sat down beside her. In the matter of likes and dislikes Trix had
always been greatly led by impulse, and in the present case all her
impulses told her that her new friend was one whom she should soon
learn to like greatly. Mrs. Warriner was so superior to her surround-
ings, and had so evidently been bred a gentlewoman, that before they
had been a quarter of an hour together, Trix could not help wondering
to herself how it happened that such a one as she should have to win
her bread by the manufacture of artificial flowers.

" Mrs. Clemson has told me all about your illness," said Mrs.
Warriner, " and you must believe me when I say that I am truly sorry
to find that she has spoken no more than the truth as regards your
condition. Mrs. Clemson is a good nurse ; I am but an indifferent
one ; but you may be quite sure that we will both do our best for you."

And they both did their best, waiting upon and nursing poor Trix
with a kindness that never seemed to weary nor grow impatient. Trix
would sometimes try to murmur her thanks, or ask what she had done
to be treated with such true Christian charity. But that was a subject
on which neither of them would hear a word, telling her that they
would listen to what she might have to say when she should be quite
recovered, but not a day before. Trix's purse had a few sovereigns
in it ; besides which, she had her watch and a valuable keeper-ring,
but not one farthing would Mrs. Clemson accept from her so long as
she lay ill in bed.

" There is no knowing, my dear, what use you may find for your
money when you get well again," she said. " We must first talk over
your plans and prospects, and consider what you intend to do. After-
wards— well — we may, perhaps, think about it. Meanwhile, don't let
it bother you, — not the least bit in the world."

It was needful that Trix should give some name to her hostess, and
accordingly she called herself " Mrs. Davenant," but said nothing as
to the particular town from which she came. She had made up her
mind to reveal everything so soon as she should be well enough to
talk over her troubles, but just now she shrank, as only an invalid can
shrink, from baring her wound to the eyes of any one. That she did
not at once communicate by telegraph either with her father or her
sister, as she might so easily have done, shows that she was wounded
as deeply in her pride as she was in her love. She knew how greatly
both Mr. Davenant and Margaret would be pained by her unaccount-
able absence, yet still she allowed day after day to go by without
letting them know where she was. She was so sorely stricken, that
for a while she did not care to have even those loved ones by her.

288 A Guilty Silence.

As she then was, it seemed to her better to be among strangers, to
whom the details of her wretched story were unknown.

But with returning health came a yearning desire to see her sister,
combined perhaps with a wish, unacknowledged to herself, to have
some tidings of her husband. So, as soon as she was strong enough
to hold a pen, she sat up in bed and scrawled a few lines to Margaret,
telling her where she was and asking her to come to her as quickly as
possible. By the same post she wrote to her husband as under : —

" When you got back from your journey to London, and found that
your wife had left the shelter of your roof, you were doubtless at no
loss to comprehend her reasons for so doing. Your clandestine corres-
pondence was no secret to her — had been no secret — for weeks before
that time. She followed you to London, and there saw with her own
eyes what doubtless she would never have heard from your lips. She
cares to know neither who the women was whom she saw you with in
the train nor whither you were going. It is sufficient for her to know
that you and she can never again be the same to each other that you
once were : where confidence is not, affection cannot long have place.

" The writer has been very ill, or she would have communicated
with you before now. She omits to send you her address, because
she prefers that anything you may have to say should be said through
her sister, Mrs. Bruhn, to whom she writes by this post.

"B. R."

Trix had casually learnt that one of Mrs. Clemson's two servants
was unable either to read or write, and she picked out this girl to post
her letters, being desirous that neither Mrs. Clemson nor Eve Warriner
should learn as yet the name of the man by whom, as she conceived,
she had been so cruelly wronged. By-and-by she would tell them
everything, but at present her heart was very, very sore, and she would
keep her secret for a little while longer.

So, when her letters were ready, — Mrs. Clemson being out shopping
and Mrs. Warriner busy in the workroom, — Trix sent for the girl, and,
by the bribe of a shilling, induced her to take them to the post-office
without delay. The girl came back in a quarter of an hour, and told
Mrs. Randolph that she had duly posted both the letters. As it
happened, the letter addressed to Mrs. Bruhn never reached her.
Either the girl had dropped it on her way to the post-office, and had
been afraid to acknowledge the fact, or else it had been lost in transit ;
in any case, it was never received by Margaret.

Hugh Randolph's letter, as we have already seen, was intercepted
by Charlotte Heme, and afterwards destroyed ; but even if it had come
to hand, Trix's whereabouts would still have been a mystery, as only
in the letter to Mrs. Bruhn was her address given, and that being lost,
father, husband, and sister would still have been as far divided from
her as before.

(To be contmued.)

( 289 )

ANOTHER TED.

By Evelyn C. Farrington.

I.

" Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean.
Tears from the depth of some divine despair,
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn fields.
And thinking of the days that are no more."

"TT is the voice of an angel!" exclaimed Ted Seagrave, after
^ listening in rapt silence to the above words, sung in such sweet
tones, such passionate feeling, as to justify his exclamation.

Ted was my husband's cousin, and had come to spend a few weeks
with us this summer. He proved a gay element in our usually quiet
household ; very good-natured and open-hearted, if a trifle hasty
and thoughtless, and we both agreed that we should miss him very
much when the term of his visit expired.

We were seated, Ted and I, upon a comfortable bench, outside
the drawing-room window of my husband's old-fashioned country
mansion, a place that had been in his family for nearly three hundred
years. The said window was open, and through it floated out, in full
sweet strains, this well-known air. Ted had not exaggerated the
beauty of the voice.

" Who is the singer ? " he inquired with deep interest, as once
more Tennyson's beautiful words swelled forth upon the summer air,
rising and falling with such exquisite feeling that I felt tears suffuse
my own eyes.

" It is Olive Orbert," I replied ; " a great friend of mine. You,
Ted, who are here so seldom, have never met her ; she has a voice in
a thousand."

Olive was spending the afternoon with me, having, only the day
before, returned from a visit to some distant friends.

" I have been suffering from a bad headache, and nothing soothes
it like Olive's voice," I added, " so she proposed that I should sit
here, and she would sing to me."

Again the words fell upon the air —

" Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others ; deep as love —
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ;
Oh, death in life, the days that are no more ! "

The lovely voice trembled a little as it reached the last two lines,
and the concluding words were full of a " divine despair."

290 Another Ted.

I knew what an impression Olive's song had made upon Ted, by
the earnest ring in his tones, as he remarked :

" Any one who can sing hke that must be good and beautiful ! "

I smiled. Ted was given to sentimentality, but I had small fears
upon his account where Olive was concerned, for I thought I knew
him well enough to feel assured she would not be at all the sort of
woman likely to add another name to his lengthy list of love affairs.

" I have known many a plain woman with a good voice, and vice
versa. Is it absolutely essential that beauty of voice and personal
beauty should go together ? " I remarked, with some secret amuse-
ment.

" Do you mean that Miss Orbert is plain ? " said Ted. " But if
not beautiful, to sing with such feeling she must possess a noble
heart and a beautiful soul."

"Yes," I answered gravely, "there I grant you. Olive Olbert is
one of the noblest women I ever met."

" I was sure of it ! " he exclaimed. " That's girl's voice "

" I am not sure that you will think her quite a girl, Ted," I
interrupted. I was then thirty-seven, he twenty-five — men and
women do not always agree upon the question of youth at these
different ages.

" She cannot, surely, be so old as I am ? " he said.

" Olive Orbert is twenty-seven, and she looks older. But hush !
here she comes ! "

I wondered, as I introduced them, what impression she would
make upon Ted, who had watched her approach with mingled interest
and curiosity. I thought that he looked a little disappointed, and,
although it would be hard to give a reason, I felt vexed that it should
be so. A tall woman was Olive, possessing a slight graceful figure,
an erect carriage, inclined, as I sometimes told her, to a little
haughtiness.

Her hair was golden, crowning a well-shaped head with innumer-
able waves ; her eyes were large and dark, and this it was which
partly redeemed her face from plainness, for they were extremely
beautiful ; otherwise her features were not perfect, and her complexion
was very pale.

" I hope your headache is better, Emily," she said, taking the
wicker chair which Ted placed for her, with a quiet " Thank you."

"Very much better. Your music has had its usual effect," I
replied.

" We have more than enjoyed your song. Miss Orbert," remarked
Ted. " I returned just in time to hear it. It is long since I had
the pleasure of listening to a really good voice ! "

He spoke so earnestly that she looked at him with a quiet smile,
partly of pleasure, but more of amusement. " I am glad you liked
it," she replied, simply.

Presently my husband joined us, and we four spent a very pleasant

Another Ted. 291

evening. Ted wore his liveliest air, and Olive smiled that quiet
smile of hers oftener than I had seen her for a long while. But
Ted's manner towards my friend was totally different from that he
assumed in the presence of other girls. His usual witty remarks and
quick repartee were addressed to Rupert or myself; when Olive
spoke he turned to her with an attentive, almost deferential air, quite
foreign to this gay, careless young man. I could not understand the
change, unless it was that he did not yet feel sufficiently at ease with
Olive to chat with her as he chatted with others.

What a contrast they made, these two ! Ted's bright youthful
face, his ready smile, and mischievous blue eyes. Olive's sweet
expression, sad dark eyes, and dignified air.

" She looks upon him as an amusing boy ! " I thought when, a few
days later, I watched them strolling across our lawn together. He
was talking in his usual animated way, and she was listening, some-
times gravely, sometimes smiling. They had been much together
since that first meeting.

" I cannot understand how it is he seems so fond of talking to a
quiet woman such as Olive ! " I mentally ejaculated. " Nor how,
too, s/ie takes such evident interest in listening to him ? "

' What are you thinking of, Emily ? " inquired my husband, who
entered the room at this moment. His eyes followed the direction
of my own.

" I'm afraid Ted is a sad flirt ! " he cried.

" Not in connection with Olive, Rupert. Whatever Ted might do,
Olive would never flirt ! "

" You don't surely think they are smitten with each other ? " cried
my husband, opening his eyes very wide.

" No," I replied ; " the idea is absurd ! Olive is two years his
senior. Besides, it is impossible she should ever forget Edward
Maitland."

My husband interrupted me with a shrug of his shoulders. " She
is just the calm quiet check he requires through life," he said. " Nine
times out of ten, men fall in love with a woman exactly opposite to
themselves, both in character and appearance."

" They are good friends these two, and I am very glad to see it,"
I replied ; " but as to anything further "

And I, so well acquainted with the story in Olive's past life, smiled
with provoking superiority.

" Emily," remarked Olive one afternoon, as she raised those sweet
grave eyes to my face, " I like Mr. Seagrave ; he is so natural and
unaffected, and there is so much in him. He reminds me of 7ny
Ted. And is it not strange that he should be called Ted also ? "

292 Another Ted.

II.

Olive and I had been school-fellows. I was the eldest and she the
youngest of Miss Rignold's pupils, there being ten years between us.
From the first I took a fancy to the little dark-eyed girl, and we
had remained the firmest of friends. Now an orphan, Olive resided
but a short distance from our house, ^\'ith her great-aunt, an invalid,
to whom she devoted herself with the most unremitting care and
attention.

Olive's nature was particularly unselfish and sympathetic. There
had been a history, almost a tragedy, in her past and seemingly un-
eventful life. At nineteen she had been proud, high-spirited, filled
with a determination to charm and captivate all who crossed her path.
She was a great flirt, and had many admirers ; but, after leading them
on until they had so far committed themselves as to make her an
offer of hand and heart, she scorned them all. One, however, Ted
Maitland, had taken her own capricious fancy, although not even to
herself, at first, would she confess that she loved him ; much less, in
answer to his earnest declaration of affection, would she admit the
true state of her feelings to the man who would have died to save her
a moment's unhappiness. She rejected him as cavalierly as she had
rejected others, but only in the hope that he would pursue his suit.
He never did so, and, when too late, she awoke, as from a dream, to
find that she had made a life's mistake. From that day the girl's
proud, overbearing spirit was subdued. With Ted Maitland's
departure, the Olive of old passed away also ; but those noble
qualities, which a mask of pride and ambition had hitherto concealed,
were brought to light, and so good had come out of her suffering.
But she could not be otherwise than sad when she lived upon a
memory fraught with bitterness and remorse. Even after seven years
she was sometimes filled with a wild regret for the sound of a voice
once so familiar to her ears, for the warm clasp of a hand she had
missed so long — a voice and a clasp that she would never hear or
feel again as long as life should last.

Often when we were together I would notice the far-away look
steal into her dark eyes, the melancholy deepen upon her pale face,
and I knew that, in imagination, she was standing beside the grave
of one of whom the memory was at times almost more than she could
bear. No wonder if her eyes grew dim, and her voice trembled as
she sang that song, and to her remembrance recalled the " days that
are no more ; " days when she loved and was beloved.

" It seems so sad, Olive, that you should dedicate yourself to a
memory," I one day ventured to remark. " That you should remain
single when it is within your power to brighten "

" Oh, hush ! " she exclaimed, with an expression of absolute pain.
" It is not within my power to brighten the life of any one save poor

Another Ted. 293

Aunt Alice. I have no heart to bestow ; it was buried years ago in
/lis grave. But I am content now, for I feel " — and her gaze wandered
in the direction of the star-lit sky — •" that we shall meet again."

After this I said no more upon the subject ; maybe there was more
in those lines of which she was so fond than I imagined —

" Oh, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close ;
As the sunflower turns to her god when he sets.
The same look which she turned when he rose."

III.

In spite of the incredulity with which I had received Rupert's
remarks, I should have been blind had I not noticed how much
brighter and happier Olive had appeared of late. Ted possessed,
and did not fail to exercise, the power to divert and amuse her, as no
other man had done. It was evident that she had no longer the
leisure, or the desire to dwell only upon the sad past. But if, indeed,
Olive was unconsciously losing her heart to another Ted, would not
an awakening as to the true state of her feelings, be considered as
infidelity to the dead, and so prove a rude shock to her ? And with
no happy result, for it was scarcely likely that a young man of Ted
Seagrave's disposition would find in this grave woman of seven-and-
twenty a congenial companion for life. Olive's aunt took a great
fancy to him, and he was constantly at her house. The invalid
seemed never so well, or so cheerful, as during his frequent visits,
generally laden with a basket of my roses or a new book to beguile
away the tedious hours of illness and pain. I wondered how it
would all end.

Lost in a day dream composed of the above materials, I felt two
soft hands upon my shoulders, and looking up, met the gentle gaze
of Olive's expressive dark eyes.

She looked almost pretty to-night, for a bright colour shone in her
cheek, while her smile was sweet and happy.

" How charming you look, Olive ! " I exclaimed. " What a
pity " then paused upon second thoughts.

" Flatterer ! " said Olive, laughing. " But what is a pity ? "

For a moment I was silent. " Where is Ted ? " I inquired at
length.

" With Mr. Lawrence. We have been rowing upon the lake, and I
have brought you the loveliest bunch of water-lilies ; you ought to
value them, for we nearly capsized the whole concern to get them for
you ! Look at this lovely bud ! "

Olive walked to the window and stood pensively silent for a few
moments.

" Do you know," she remarked in a low voice, " this day is the

294 ' Another Ted.

anniversary of poor Ted's death ? " She had turned her back towards
me, and I could not see her face, but it was too evident that in
thoughts of the dead she had forgotten the Hving.

I joined her at the window, and sHpping my arm through hers,
glanced up in her grave face.

" How I wish you could forget the past, Olive ! " I remarked, with
a sigh. " It is wrong to dwell so much upon it."

" You would have me forget the best man that ever lived ! " she
replied, drawing away from me, whilst a troubled expression crept into
her eyes. " It can never be."

" It can and ought to be," I returned warmly. " You can never be
really happy until you have cast into oblivion all that happened seven
years ago. I would say, ' Remember him, not as one whom you ^yil-
fully wronged, but as one who is far happier now than you could ever
have made him ? ' "

" A lifetime of remorse would not atone ! " she murmured, and, in
the gathering dusk, I thought I saw a tear steal down her pale face.
Poor Ted Seagrave ! If, indeed, he loved her, there existed but
small hope of his gaining her affection ; yet, I still consoled myself
with the idea of its being but a passing fancy upon his part.

Ted's visit, which had lengthened into five weeks' duration, now
drew towards a close — only three days more and he would be gone.
Olive's aunt had suddenly been taken worse, and I saw nothing of
my friend for a week. Ted called every day to inquire for the
invalid, and generally received an account of her progress from
Olive's own lips. Ted had grown thoughtful of late ; I even found
him absent-minded and preoccupied upon more than one occasion.
He was, however, very far from unhappy ; of this I felt certain.

"AVith Ted's income and Ted's good nature, your friend Olive
would be a lucky woman, my dear ! " remarked Rupert ; " but as to
Ted, I cannot see where his good fortune would be. A penniless girl
with a gloomy face, and a heart buried in the grave of another man ! "

Rupert shrugged his shoulders, and I made some indignant
rejoinder in Olive's defence. Rupert never shared my enthusiasm for
Miss Orbert.

Two days before Ted's departure Olive came to spend an hour
with me. Her aunt was better, and gladly spared her, for she needed
a little fresh air. It was a beautiful evening ; we strolled about the
garden, where of course Ted joined us. Olive took off her hat, and
swung it gently to and fro. She was paler than usual ; to my fancy,
her eyes looked larger and darker ; she scarcely spoke, and Ted, the
voluble, was equally silent.

" You and Emily must come for a row. Miss Orbert," he said at
length, turning to her. " Do you see those strange shadows cast by
the trees upon the water ? How weird and beautiful everything looks
by moonlight ! "

Another Ted. 295

Wishing to draw Olive out for a row, Master Ted tried a subject
which at any other time would most probably have made her
eloquent. But to-night she only shook her head, remarking that she
must return to her aunt. A dreamy expression crept into her eyes,
as they wandered over the smooth surface of the dark waters, and I
wondered whether she was thinking of the other Ted in his African
grave, upon which the same moon, now beaming down upon her, also
shed its silvery rays. I thought, too, how sweet was her expression,
how really beautiful she looked to-night.

Perhaps Ted thought likewise, for his glance when he looked at her
was full of unmistakable love and admiration.

" Let us go in," I said, somewhat wearily ; and we turned back
towards the house. I noticed that, when Ted spoke, she dare not
trust herself to look at him ; she answered, but her eyes refused to
return his gaze. How seldom these little matters connected with the
heart escape a woman's observation !

I insisted that Olive should borrow one of my shawls, for the air
was chilly, and she already suffered from a slight cold. She ran
lightly upstairs to fetch it. Ted and I were standing in the hall ; his
eyes followed her receding figure until it disappeared from view ; then
he turned and looked at me with a smile, and his voice shook a little
as he said :

" My 2vife^ Emily, if she will consent to become such."

" Oh, Ted," I exclaimed, with real feeling, " are you very sure it is
for your happiness and for hers ? Is it possible that you are suited
to each other ? — that you "

" Hush," he said, " she is returning ! I love her with my whole
heart and soul. From the first moment I beheld her, I loved her.
Olive Orbert is my ' fate ' ! "

I said no more. Ted was to be her escort home ; she paused
upon the door-step and raised her eyes to the stars. 'Twas only for
a moment, but in those dark orbs I thought I read a prayer, a wild
entreaty, so deep, so earnest, so despairing, it startled me ; and I
wondered vaguely, as I closed the door upon them, and returned to
the drawing-room, whether it was a supplication for strength to remain
true and steadfast to conscience.

IV.

Hours passed, and Ted did not return. Determined to wait up no
longer, and wondering what could possibly detain him so long, I was
just about to leave the drawing-room, when I heard the front door
gently open, and he came in. To my surprise, my gentleman walked
straight upstairs, never even pausing to say good-night.

" Olive has refused him," I mentally concluded. Ted proved very
gloomy next morning ; he scarcely ate anything, and talked less,

296 Another Ted,

looking, in fact, a very disconsolate lover. A little later he made
known his determination to leave us that day instead of the next, as
had been arranged. Rupert would have pressed him to alter this
sudden resolve or give some reasonable explanation, but, meeting a
significant glance from me, he said no more upon the subject. Pre-
sently Rupert left the room, and Ted, walking over to the window,
thrust his hands into his pockets, staring out, an object of gloom and
despair. " Well, it's all up for me, Cousin Emily ! " he remarked,
with an effort.

" I feared it would end so," I replied, more sorry for him than I
cared to express. " Olive will never marry. Did she tell you about
—the other Ted ? "

" Yes ; she told me everything ; but I could not see why she should
live a single life because that other fellow died ! What she said of
him was pretty strong. To judge by her remarks, he must have been
a sort of angel ! "

" He was no better than his fellows — good-hearted enough, cer-
tainly ; but so are you, and quite as worthy her love. She was very
wayward in those days, and sometimes, I thought, scarcely knew her
own mind ; but I believe she really loved this man. His death was
a terrible shock to her, for undoubtedly she had not treated him well.
She led him on until he believed she would accept him. Eventually
she meant to do so, but, when he asked her why she refused him, she
gave as a reason some foolish and unfounded report which, through
a rival, had become circulated against his character. They parted
with bitter words ; he sailed with his regiment for Africa, and she saw
him no more. Some months later he died of a prevalent fever. She
now lives upon a memory, to which she has resolved upon remaining
' true until death.' "

" She has determined to make two fellows miserable instead of
one ! " remarked Ted bitterly. " What could it matter to that poor
chap in his foreign grave whether she became my wife or not ? I
shall never love another woman as I love Olive, Cousin Emily ! The
first sound of her voice, the first sight of her face, seemed to open a
new prospect in my life. I could not even talk to her as I do to
other girls ; I could not feel that the same little speeches I made to
them would do for her ! She seems a being higher, nobler than any
other I have ever met. I knew from the very first moment I ever
saw her that she was the one woman in the world for me ! "

"And I fancied that she cared for you a little," I replied. "She
has seemed so happy lately."

" Oh, she told me that she liked me very much, and wished always
to remain my friend ! " remarked Ted, with renewed bitterness. " But
begged I would never again mention the possibility of any other
relationship between us. It is a very bitter disappointment to me,
and it will wreck my life ! "

So Ted left us, and we saw no more of our favourite for some time.

Another Ted. 297

Olive's aunt became rapidly worse, and my friend's visits grew few and
far between, until the poor old lady died. Miss Orbert had been
Olive's nearest surviving relative. Poor Olive ! She looked thinner,
paler, older. Was it only the nursing, the anxiety, the grief of her
aunt's illness and death which wrought this change in her ? Or did
she regret — but no, that was surely impossible !

V.

The small but pretty villa in which old Miss Orbert had passed
the last few years of her life, together with the limited income upon
which she had lived, were bequeathed to her niece Olive, and here
my friend intended to remain.

" I shall collect a regiment of cats and dogs, to say nothing of a
parrot and canary-bird, upon whom to lavish my attentions ! " remarked
Olive, with a faint smile, one day when I was spending the afternoon
with her. "You must pass an hour or so with the old maid as often
as you can, Emily, or she may become melancholy and misanthropic.
I am quite alone in the world."

The words, so gently spoken, and the tone so full of quiet resig-
nation, touched me deeply. I approached and took her hand.

" Oh, Olive ! would that you could return poor Ted's attachment !
Now that you are alone in the world, will you still allow sad thoughts
and vain regrets to stand between yourself and a true-hearted, honest
affection ? " I paused, struck by the expression of anguish which
passed over her pale features.

" Emily, you call yourself my friend, and seek to tempt me thus !
Have I not prayed that you would never mention the past to me
again ? For, oh, I am most miserable ! "

She fell upon her knees and buried her face in the cushions of the
sofa, while I, pained and astonished, sought to soothe the storm of
agony which shook her slender frame. What had I done, what had
I said, to cause this burst of grief? For which Ted was she now
weeping — the living or the dead ? I begged her forgiveness, and
promised never again to refer to the subject. At length she rose,
and, seating herself beside me on the sofa, remarked that she had
nothing to forgive, still averted her eye, and, resting her cheek upon
the sofa, asked my pardon for giving way so foolishly. " But there
are moments, Emily, when, like Mariana, ' I am aweary, weary. I
would that I were dead ! ' Yet I know it is wrong, and I put it from
me as much as possible."

She seemed so faint and overcome that I ran up to her dressing-
room for a bottle of smelling-salts I knew she always kept there.
Something seemed to tell me that Olive loved Edward Seabright, and
was deliberately consigning herself to misery from an over-scrupulous
conscience.

VOL. LIV. T

298 Another Ted.

Upon turning to leave the room, my sleeve caught the corner of a
small desk which stood upon a table close by, and, before I could
prevent it, the desk fell to the ground. Out rolled most of the
articles it contained, and I stooped to pick them up, when — what was
this?

Ah, Olive, my friend, your secret was one no longer to me ! A
small packet fell open in my hand, containing the one little note
which, upon some pretext or other, our cousin had written her, in the
early days of their acquaintance — the faded bud of a water-lily he had
plucked for her when they rowed together upon the smooth waters of
the lake. The stem of the flower was tied with a knot of blue
ribbon as carefully as any school-girl would preserve her first love-
token. So romance was not dead in Olive Orbert's heart — and she
knew it !

Replacing the precious packet within the box, I returned to the

drawing-room. Olive had now quite regained her composure, but she

little guessed that the secret she believed so safe in her own keeping

had now passed into mine.

******

It so happened, about this time, that Olive received a long letter
from an old friend, whom, for some years, she had lost sight of.
This lady, now a widow, hinted that, as it seemed they w^ere both
almost alone in the world, it would be a pleasant arrangement if they
were to join incomes and live together.

" She was a pretty amiable girl fifteen years ago," remarked Olive,
when she had shown me the letter, and she seemed pleased with the
idea. Mrs. Challinor arrived, and proved all that she had been in
girlhood She was exactly the kind of companion Olive required ;
good-hearted, if a little frivolous, and always cheerful. Yet she had
known much sorrow and anxiety, for, young as she was, she had been
already twice a widow. She had nursed her first husband through a
painful illness ; he died ; and one short year following her second
marriage, Hugh Challinor was thrown from his horse while out
hunting, and was killed on the spot.

Olive felt her own melancholy rebuked by this bright example, and,
making an effort to rouse herself, regained much of her old cheer-
fulness.

" I waited five years before I married again," remarked Mrs.
Challinor, in speaking of her past life to us.

Something in the expression of Olive's dark eyes seemed to say,
" How could you, even after five years, forget your first love ? "

" I was happier in my second marriage," continued Mrs. Challinor.
" Mr. Challinor suited me better. He had the kindest heart, and
was full of life and merriment. Oh, I lost much when I lost him ! "
said his little widow, as for a moment her bright eyes became moist ;
the next she smiled again as she went on with her reminiscences.

" My first husband," she continued, " was a remarkably handsome

' ^' Another Ted, 299

man, but I think I married him more from pity than any other
sentiment, although, afterwards, I learned to care for him as he
deserved. We met out in Africa, where I had gone with my brother.
Edward fell in love with me at first sight, although before leaving
England I believe he had had some unfortunate love affair with a
girl who behaved badly to him. He died of fever, and in nursing
him I narrowly escaped death myself. When my brother returned to
England I accompanied him, leaving poor Edward in his foreign
grave."

Olive's dark eyes are bent with a sort of wondering interest upon
the almost childish face of the young widow. Rose Challinor, with
all her flitting smiles and tears, could not lay claim to the wealth of
deep, true, noble feeling possessed, all unconsciously, by my friend.
But perhaps it is as well that women are not all alike.

" How strange it is," remarked Olive, " that until you told me
yesterday, I had no idea you were ever married before ! "

" Not so very strange," returned Mrs. Challinor, "for I don't often
talk of the past ; and during the whole of my stay in Africa, and
until I was Mrs. Challinor, we did not correspond."

'* You have never told us your first husband's name, Rose ! " said
Olive presently.

" Edward Maitland ; or, as his brother officers used to call him,
Ted Maitland," she replied.

VI.

Ted Maitland ! the words rang in my ears. I can almost hear the
widow's unconscious tones, now, as I write. And Olive sat, with her
eyes fixed upon Rose Carey's face, her lips parted, her face pale as
death. Mrs. Challinor stooped, and taking up the poker, smoothed
a refractory lump of coal into submission. Then she turned to me.

" He was the youngest son of old Sir Richard Maitland," she
continued, innocent of the emotion her simple words had aroused.
Her last remark confirmed my more than suspicion.

" We knew something of the family before Captain Maitland left
England," I remarked.

" Indeed ? but it is likely ; they had many friends, and were
influential people. Did you know the girl who jilted Edward? I
should much like to see her. Idle curiosity, perhaps, but pardonable
under the circumstances. Sir Richard was a stern father."

So rattled on the woman who had supplanted, if indeed she ever
did so, Olive Orbert in Ted Maitland's heart ; and amidst her
unceasing prattle, Olive made her escape unobserved. Strange that
they should thus come into contact, the girl he had loved and parted
with in anger, and the girl he had married hoping she would heal the
wound in his heart.

T 2

300 Another Ted.

When next alone with my friend. I found she was not quite the
same. There was a flash in her eye suggestive of bitterness and
defiance ; but it vanished when I spoke to her, and leaning her head
upon my shoulder, she said she was glad he had been happy ; yet
there was something like humiliation in her look and voice.

A shock undoubtedly it was to her, but not so painful as it might
have been, had she loved him as she did before meeting Edward
Seagrave. As it was, she had learned to love the latter with all the
strength of her noble heart, even against her will. For nine years, as
it proved, she had been living up to a delusion, had been constant to
the memory of one who had gone out to Africa only to forget her,
and to find consolation in another's love. Another woman had
received his caresses, had borne his name, had made his brief life
happy, had soothed his dying moments. Yes, it was humiliating, but
it also brought its consolation. Poor Edward Maitland had not died
of a broken heart ; Olive had not been the ruin of his life. Was she
not now free to accept the love of another ?

A change in Olive was perceptible from that day. The old smile
returned to her lip, the light to her beautiful eyes. Hope, which had
been dead in her, now revived. I felt that the future might be left
to itself.

^ 7ft ^ ^ ^ ^

A year passed on. Olive and I were alone in my pretty drawing-
room. She was spending the evening with me, for Rupert had gone
up to town on business, and I never cared to be quite alone at
night, although expecting his return every moment. It was a cold
evening in November, but the fire, piled high, sent forth a glow of
comfortable heat.

I thought, as I viewed Olive, in her gown of some rich crimson
material, with her mass of dark hair and large liquid eyes, how hand-
some my friend had grown of late. Olive was again living alone.
Mrs. Challinor had taken captive a Scotch baronet, who spent all his
time in the Highlands, excepting three months of the season in town,
when their house was the gayest of the gay, and pretty Lady Mac-
kenzie's box at the Opera was always crowded with the cream of society
between the acts.

My husband's step in the hall disturbed my reverie, and Olive
looked up with a smile as I hastened to meet him with as much
pleasure as I used to meet him in the first days of our marriage.

Upon reaching the hall I found to my surprise that Rupert had a
companion.

" Cousin Emily, how are you ? " A hearty kiss accompanied the
words. It was Ted — our dear Ted himself! But the boyish look
had left his face ; he was altered ; graver and more earnest was his
fair face, but kindly and pleasant as ever.

A few minutes later I re-entered the drawing-room. Olive had
risen, and was standing, her hand resting, as if for support, upon the

Another Ted. 301

mantcl-shclf, her face turned towards the door in an attitude of
listening.

" OHve," I said quietly, " Rupert met his cousin in town, and
Edward has returned here with him."

I could get no further, for I was quietly put aside by Ted himself,
who entered without ceremony. Well-pleased was I to leave them
alone together, closing the door behind me, but not before I overheard
his delighted exclamation :

" Olive, my darling, have I returned in vain ? "

Wise Rupert ! I sometimes think, had it not been for you, Olive
would never have become Ted's wife ; for my husband, meeting Ted,

who inquired for Olive, had told him all.

******

Some years have elapsed since Olive became Mrs. Seagrave, and
Ted has amply proved the sincerity of his love. The echo of small
voices and young feet make glad their home. Happiness and pros-
perity follow^ them in greater measure than is often bestowed upon
mortals. Let us trust they will do so as time rolls on, and opens for
these two the portals of a still brighter life beyond.

AT SET OF SUN.

If we sit down at set of sun.

And count the things that we have done.

And counting find
One self-denying act, one word
That eased the heart of him who heard ;

One glance most kind.
That fell like sunshine where it went,
Then we may count that day well spent.

But if, through all the live-long day.
We've eased no heart by yea or nay;

If through it all
We've done no thing that we can trace,
That brought the sunshine to a face ;

No act most small.
That helped some soul, and nothing cost,
Then count that day as worse than lost.

302

IN THE LOTUS-LAND.

By Charles W. Wood, F.R.G.S., Author of "Letters from
Majorca," " The Bretons at Home," etc., etc.

"\ 7[ TE passed rapidly through the ancient City of
^ ^ Cambyses, this City of the Pyramids, and
asked ourselves where its antiquity had gone to.
On all sides were modern and fashionable build-
ings. The very railway station we had left with a
feeling of relief, was but of yesterday ; a contra-
diction to all the traditions of the Cairo of the
past.

A well-appointed equipage was in waiting for
Osman, and with all the speed of thoroughbred
Arabians, he was soon whirling away towards the
palace of the Khedive. Our roads lay in the same
direction, but he soon outstripped us, and presently
turned out of sight. Before doing so he looked
round and waved his hand ; we fancied his lips
formed a silent " Aii revoir" and we as silently re-
sponded. There was something strangely winning
and attractive about him : an exceptional trait
amongst his people.

Aleck sat on the box beside the driver. So far
he had not failed in his engagement, and we
should certainly have been ap-
propriated ten times over at the
station without him. Our rooms
had been engaged at the Hotel
d^Angleferre, but this did not please our dragoman, who insisted-
upon first inspecting the ContineiitaL

" You will not like the other, sir," he declared, with that downright
manner of his from which there was no appeal. And we soon found
that it saved time and trouble to let Aleck take his own way in small
things. Arguments were lost upon him, and on all occasions he took
refuge in the same excuse : " He had not understood ; " meaning
that his English was at fault. It certainly was often unintelligible,
though fluent. He spoke so rapidly that half of it sounded like his
native Arabic : perhaps was so.

On this occasion it was useless to tell him to drive straight to the
Angleterre ; we might as well have tried to stay the wind or turn
the tide. Accordingly we steered for the Continental : a large and
fashionable building, than which London and Paris could show

Ancient Egyptian Vase

W

In the Lotus-Land. 303

nothing more imposing. Of course we had our trouble for our pains.
The polite manager regretted that every room was occupied. H.R.H.
the Duke of Cambridge was staying there, and had the hotel been
twice its present size there would have been no room to spare. In
three days they would be too happy to accommodate us. Meanwhile,
the Angleterre, belonging to the same proprietor, would be found
very comfortable.

During the interview Aleck had stood within the doorway of the
large hall, small riding-whip in hand, without which he was never
seen, and which he freely used to belabour the backs of what he
considered the " common people," whenever they would not do his
bidding or did not get out of his way quickly enough to please him.
Many a time, as the days went on, we expected a general fight and
commotion to set in as Aleck in vigorous wrath applied his whip
right and left, and nothing surprised us more than the calm spirit in
which his chastisements were received. It was as though the bonds
of slavery were upon them, and they accepted all as their due.
Aleck also probably knew whom he had to deal with, and had long
since measured his own power against their resistance, for he was too
shrewd and cunning to risk his own safety and our own peace and
quietness. He never once fell into trouble or caused any disturb-
ance. By his indomitable will he often gained us admittance where
others failed. At the entrance to mosques closed for the time being
to strangers and " heretics," he calmly put aside the guardians, deaf
to remonstrance ; and himself removing our boots, and placing on
slippers or sandals for treading the sacred pavement, would quietly
open the door, raise the thick carpet or portiere at the entrance, and
lead the way as if he had been monarch of the place to whom laws
and regulations were a dead letter.

He had stood within the doorway whilst we spoke to the manager,
anxiety upon his countenance : with all his faults, we believe it was
anxiety for our welfare. Besides which, the other hotel was not
sufficiently dignified for any one he deigned to serve. ''''Noblesse
oblige " applies to all ranks and many occasions.

We have often wondered since whether, if Aleck had conducted
the interview instead of ourselves, he would have managed the ruler
of the hotel as he did the guardians of the mosques. Alexandre
Dumas has not been the only one to prove that possession is nine
points of the law. Certain it is that when the manager politely
escorted us to the waiting carriage, Aleck followed with a look of ill-
concealed anger upon his face, which seemed about to break out in
remonstrance. On this occasion the whip was not applied ; but
discretion, not want of will, kept it quiet. He mounted the box and
we went our way.

At last Aleck could contain his feelings no longer. Turning to us
with a mortified look in his dark eyes, he exclaimed :

" You will not like the Hotel d'Angleterre, sir. It is not good

304 if^ i^i(^ Lotiis-Land.

enough for you. I would have stayed at the Continental even if they
had had to put me another room on to the roof."

We were amused, and felt we had a character to deal with. It
was evident that we should do well to leave all battles to our
dragoman.

The hotels in the new part of the town are rather near together,
the Continental perhaps being the most remote of all. On our way,
in the distance the citadel uprose like a vision, and beyond it the
dome and slender minarets of the Mosque of Mohammed Ali, the
latter a splendid landmark for all the country round. Looking back
from the outskirts of the desert, still it is visible, calling the faithful
to prayer as it were, resembling a building of cloudland more than of
earth.

We soon reached the hotel. The exterior was not inviting
after the magnificent Continental, but the situation was more
open. It stood opposite the public or Esbekeeyeh Gardens, whilst
the Continental was surrounded by houses. Here at least we had
green trees to look at, and the open sky above us ; whilst so many
times a week an Arabian or Egyptian band played its singular music ;
strains heartrending and inharmonious, like the wailing of lost souls ;
reminding one a little of the unrest and misery running through
Chopin's Funeral March. But the wailing and discord of the
Egyptian music was a hundred times greater. It never ceased.

As we passed through the streets the donkey-boys were in full
evidence, but for the moment they spared us. The further we went,
the greater grew our surprise and disappointment. Cairo seemed as
modern and uninteresting as Alexandria. Our immediate surround-
ings were as commonplace as those of London or Paris ; nowhere did
we feel the Oriental influence ; nowhere was it visible, excepting
when we raised our eyes and beheld afar off the wonderful vision of
the Mosque of Mohammed Ali. " Have patience, sir," said Aleck,
on hearing our regret ; " this is not Cairo, but a modern quarter built
for tourists. The real Cairo lies yonder. Before you have been here
a week you will say there is no place like it."

Heavy arcades ran in front of our hotel, such as would never be
built in any modern street of Cairo. But they protect the pavement
from the glare of the sun, and people sat in front of their doors or of
the cafes within the shade. For though it was winter the sun was hot
and brilliant. It was difficult to conceive that a few days' journey
would land us in regions of snow and ice, of east winds and every-
thing that is cruel and uncomfortable in the way of climate.

Within and around the large doorway of the hotel, there was
the usual assemblage of dragomans and orientals. To the former,
the presence of Aleck on the box must have been unwelcome. To
our dragoman, however, this would make no difference ; he was above
such small considerations as other people's feelings. Perhaps in this
lay much of the power he possessed over them ; for we never saw any

3o6 In the Lotus-Land.

one else of his class half so daring, or tyrannical, or successful in
gaining his ends. We grew at last to believe that he was a terror to
all guardians and administrators of rules and regulations ; and that,
in a higher degree, it was of such stuff as he was made that the rulers
of great bodies of people, the founders of a new order of things, the con-
querors of the world, the removers of old landmarks, are also fashioned.

With every mark of vexation on the part of Aleck, but with
gratitude on our own for any J>ied a terre in Cairo, we found ourselves
not at all uncomfortably settled. Many less fortunate people were
turned away, to continue their weary search for rooms. The luxury
and gorgeousness of modern hotels, great halls and baronial staircases,
all this was rather conspicuous by its absence. It was an old
building, and old-fashioned, with long rambling passages, and small
bridges over vacuums that threatened to give way as you passed over
them, and plunge you into unknown depths. The walk to the bath-
room was in itself always more or less a voyage of uncertainty. It
took five minutes to reach it, and most of the journey was al fresco,
conducting you through narrow balconies, round a dozen turnings,
over roofs and round chimney-pots ; the whole joined by these frail
bridges that seemed like Mohammed's coffin, suspended between
heaven and earth. As costumes at that early hour are not very
substantial, one generally reached the bath-room with chattering teeth
and cold shiverings.

It was evidently an hotel that from time to time had taken in and.
appropriated surrounding houses, connecting all by these small bridges
with a supreme disregard to life, but making of the whole a delight-
fully rambling, mysterious and unconventional institution, where a
regiment of soldiers might have scattered and concealed itself, and
one might play a game of " Hide and Seek," and, like the unfortunate
lady in the " Mistletoe Bough," hide for ever.

This reminds us — par parenthhe — that not very long ago, we saw
this self-same romantic and unfortunate chest in a room at Abbots-
ford, one of the relics with which the once Great Unknown had
surrounded himself. Immediately there came back to us a rush of
bitter-sweet memories ; days of early years, when on many a winter's
evening we listened to this melancholy rhyme in the gloaming, the
flickering fire throwing lights and shadows upon the room ; the
singular pathos of a low-toned, earnest, sweet and beloved voice — to
whom the sad and romantic strains appealed no less -forcibly than
they did to Sir Walter himself — never failing to call up the tears of
emotion that lie so close to the eyes of childhood. We were no
longer at Abbotsford, but in the foreign land of our birth and youth,
and there rose up before us a face whose ethereal and spiritual beauty
we have never, never seen equalled. For a blissful moment we lost
all consciousness of surrounding objects in a vision of the past. A
dream to be rudely broken as a voice suddenly penetrated our ears
and brought us back to earth :

3o8 In the Lotus-Land,

" That, gentlemen, is the portrait of Sir Walter's daughter who lived
and died unwedded."

And we looked up to gaze upon a young lady anything but sylph-
like in form, and very different from the romantic and graceful creations
of the great novelist.

To return to Cairo and the Hotel d'Angleterre, where certainly
there was much noise, and the sound of many voices — and probably
no very strong emotions.

Large and rambling though the hotel was, every inch of space was
utilized. The servants had no rest night or day ; it is not easy to
get the Egyptian temperament to work beyond a very methodical pace,
which will only accomplish a certain amount in a given time. The
dining-room was for ever crowded with a curious mixture of people.
Loud tones were the order of the day, a Babel of tongues. Three
nations were chiefly represented ; English, American, and German ;
in the proportion of some thirty Americans to one Englishman, with
an occasional German thrown in. Many of them looked curious
and old-fashioned enough to have assisted at the building of the
famous tower. Two ancient ladies were our admiration and amuse-
ment. That they were in Egypt and alone, proved them daring
and adventurous. Ancient and withered, there was something
strangely pathetic about them : an element often accompanying old
age. They were evidently eccentric. One of them cultivated a
beard ; the other wore her hair after the fashion of Madge Wildfire
on a refined scale. Both invariably sat down in bonnets ; large
bonnets that seemed a compromise between the old-fashioned
" cottage " of the days of our grandmothers, and the present Salvation
Army adornment. They probably thought that to appear always with
the head covered was a sign of modesty ; and they were evidently
modest ladies, shrinking into their shells in a manner that aroused
sympathy and made one long to assist them through their pilgrimage.

" Egyptian antiquities," laughed H. on the first occasion of our
meeting them. " They look like twin Sphinxes brought back to life
and shrunk down to human proportions. Who can they be ? "

Luckily they had placed us at a quiet table, near pleasant people :
habitues of the hotel who had spent many months there, and proved
agreeable. The table d'hote also was very good ; and so, at the end of
three days, when the Continental graciously intimated that excellent
rooms would be at our disposal, we had settled down on so comfort-
able and friendly a footing with our present quarters and neighbours,
that we decided not to move.

But before we left Cairo, a relaxed spirit had somehow crept into
the hotel ; the commissariat department fell away, the dinners were
abominable, and had our stay not been drawing to an end, we
should certainly have fled to fresh pastures. Fault-finding became
general. Even the two old ladies once mildly protested that not
being of the animal world they could not swallow bones ; nor

w

^4

O
H

3IO In the Lotus-Land:

cannibals, they were unable to eat meat that had simply passed
through the kitchens. But in spite of a general fault-finding things
did not improve : and we never learned the reason of the change.

That we remained at the Hotel dMngleterre did not please our
dragoman ; but he was a man wise in his generation, and like every
one else had learned to submit to the inevitable. He even admitted
at last that the hotel had its merits, but never ceased to declare that
we should have been infinitely happier at the Continental, or the
New, or Shepheard's. Since that day the latter has been rebuilt,
" with every modern improvement," as the advertisements announce.

Our first visit in Cairo was one of our most curious experiences.
It was the very day, almost the very hour, of our arrival. The
Howling Dervishes were giving their religious performances, and as
they only went through them at certain times, another opportunity
might not occur for us. So, once settled at the hotel, we set out for
the ceremonies of this peculiar people. Aleck on the box was in his
glory, and felt himself a person of consideration and importance.
His profession was not only his daily bread, it was his delight. "With
an emperor under his charge, he would have considered himself for
the time being of royal blood. He shone by reflected glory, and this
added to his daring and audacity, and his success.

It was more like a summer than a winter's day — according to our
English ideas of winter. The sun poured down upon a hot white
road, from which the dust and the sand blew unpleasantly. " In
England, sir," said Aleck from his box, " when you see the dust blow
you say it is for rain, but you must not say so in Egypt. Here you
will only want umbrellas for the sun." Our dragoman was right ;
the dust did not mean rain, though it often meant a great deal of
discomfort.

The place where the Howling Dervishes performed was at their
chief college on the banks of the Nile, outside the town, on the road
to old Cairo. Carriages lined the thoroughfare ; donkeys and
donkey-boys were in evidence. Half Cairo seemed on its way to the
dervishes, for those visitors who had not heard them howl desired
to do so. It is one of the special sights of Egypt, though not the
most agreeable.

We had no difficulty in recognizing the college. It was late, and
an immense number of carriages and donkeys were standing outside.
The scene looked a perfect fair, and every fresh arrival caused
commotion in trying to make its way to the front.

" Behind time, sir," said Aleck laconically. " The place will be
crowded."

" Too crowded to get in, perhaps," we returned ; the prospect of a
crush in a close Eastern room not very inviting.

" Leave that to Aleck, sir," said our self-confident dragoman. " I
will find you not only room but seats also."

We entered a long narrow passage which looked hastily run up for

In the Lotus-Land. 311

the occasion, and led to the sanctum sanctorum : a small room in
comparison with the crowd to be accommodated. The building,
plain and square, was lighted by a dome. There was nothing to
appeal to the imagination \ no subdued light ; no stained glass to
throw rich colours over walls and ceiling and reflect the sunshine in
a thousand rainbow hues. Everything was pale and garish ; and the
bare, yellow-washed walls were only here and there decorated with a
few weapons and symbols necessary to the faith of the dervishes.

The room was crowded with English and Americans. The earlier
comers had found seats, the later must be content to stand. Never-
theless Aleck, by some magic, true to his word, brought us chairs.
A large portion of the middle of the room was railed off in a semi-
circle. In the centre of the railing was the Kibleh or Mecca Niche,
which in the mosques holds the Koran and no doubt did so here.
Immediately opposite the Kibleh, in the outer wall, protected by the
ends of the railing, was a narrow doorway, towards which all eyes
were directed in expectation.

• We had not been seated many moments when it opened and
the sheykh appeared, followed by about twelve dervishes. The
former, aged and venerable-looking, seemed duly conscious of the
gravity of his office. He wore a dark gown or tunic, and upon his
head a black fez or cap, beneath which his hair fell in long grey
locks. Seating himself opposite the Mecca Niche, he folded his
hands and closed his eyes for a moment. The others filed in one
by one like a string of turkeys and sat round him in a semicircle.
All were dressed in black scanty gowns, and most of them were
bare-headed ; the long dark hair, wild and straggling, falling over the
shoulders ; whilst the dark skin was only redeemed by yet darker
eyes. For the moment their expression was subdued, almost stupid,
like that of men under the influence of a drug ; but they were no
doubt only cultivating that state of mind and imagination necessary
to the ecstatic mood. They evidently possessed great veneration for
their sheykh — an office as hereditary as the throne and accompanied
by far more personal influence and superstition within its regions — •
and waited for him to open the ceremony.

You might have thought the sheykh was invoking inspiration, only
that the form of their devotion does not vary. He began with a
short prayer, during which the dervishes around him were motionless
and inscrutable as a sphinx. But the Egyptian images of old were
far more interesting than these dervishes, who became repulsive as
they warmed to their performance.

The sheykh concluded his short prayer, and the dervishes im-
mediately repeated the name of Allah in a loud voice, the walls of
the room ringing back the echo. This was followed by a profession
of part of their faith, spoken in loud, rapid tones. Then all rose to
their feet. The same prayers were repeated over and over again,
growing louder and more excited; heads and bodies began to nod

312 in the Lotus-Land,

and sway to and fro, the long hair streaming in disorder. Some
of the faces grew rather terrible. The voices increased, and the
howlings were anything but human. The men looked insane, with
something almost suggestive of wild animals about them ; the whole
performance repelled. Their ecstasy, if such it was, seemed a
species of fine frenzy, and if they had suddenly produced daggers
and stabbed each other, it would have been a proper conclusion
to the scene. Remembering that all these ceremonies are done
under the influence of religious fervour — a part of their worship —
one marvels that human beings exist who believe such an exhibi-
tion can be pleasing to a divine Ruler of destinies. As their
howlings grew louder, their gestures more frenzied, one expected to
see heads drop off, or at least dislocation of the neck ; but nothing
happened.

The performance was made more ghastly by unearthly music
which accompanied the movements, and kept time to voice and
gesture. To the left of the sheykh, who alone was accommodated
with a mat or praying carpet, stood the musicians ; a flute, a horn,
tambourines, and small drums, making up the wild orchestra. The
drums were made of metal and struck with leather. Evidently the
music had great influence upon the dervishes and stimulated their
eflbrts ; acting upon them as the sound of the bugle to the war-
horse, the bagpipes to the wild highlanders in the mountain passes
of Scotland, the bi7imi to the Breton.

It was a curious sight ; not least strange, the absorbed expression
of the spectators who sat or stood round the railing. The contrast
of type was also very evident ; the pale European faces and fair
hair, looking, in spite of wonderful costumes, of every sample of
plain feature, almost beautiful and refined in comparison with the
clumsy faces, swarthy complexions, long lustreless hair of the
dervishes. But even here race meant much ; there were degrees
of ugliness. The sheykh himself, for instance, was handsome and
dignified ; his features were regular and finely cut ; no European
in the room was of a better type, few half so good. He seemed to
have come of a long line of ancestors ; it was only too evident that
many of the Europeans had had no ancestors at all. Not his the
part to join in the insane motions of his followers, but to preserve a
solemn majesty becoming his hereditary ofiice. The performance is
called a Zikr^ meaning a continued calling upon the name of Allah
attended by gestures, dancing, nodding the head, howling, or all
combined.

To-day the Zikr was prolonged. The performance must have been
fearfully fatiguing, and every one expected to see them fall, giddy
and unconscious. But howlings and noddings ceased, and the
dervishes sat down again in the most ordinary and every-day
manner possible. Of the spectators they took no notice ; these
seemed neither to add to nor diminish their zeal. There was no

VOL. LIV.

Worshippers in a Mosque.

U

314 J^i^ the Lotus-Land.

self-consciousness about the performers. When all was again still
and quiet the sheykh offered up another prayer, the dervishes cried
" Hoo," kissed his hand, filed through the small doorway by which
they had entered, and we saw them no more.

Apart from religious fanaticism, these dervishes are a curious and
interesting people. They have many monasteries, some of which are
well worth visiting. The traveller is frequently welcomed by the
sheykh with great kindness and hospitality.

A remarkable institution is the retreat of the Bektashee dervishes,
near the tombs of the Mamelukes. It had fallen from age into
semi-ruin, but was rebuilt by the late Khedive ; for the dervishes in
their way are venerated. Before the Tekkeeyeh flourishes a stretch of
green trees and shrubs, looking rather like an oasis in a sandy desert.
Passing beyond this up a long flight of steps, you enter a small,
carefully-kept garden, at the end of which lies the monastic building.
It is on an extensive scale, with a large hall for devotions, many
cells for the dervishes, rooms set apart for the sheykh, and an
elaborate kitchen. Beyond it is an ancient, partly underground
quarry, penetrating far into the rock, at the extreme end of which lies
buried the Sheykh Abdallah, a native of Adalia. He was the first of
the dervishes to visit Egypt, where he founded the order, which has
ever since flourished. Here, in the cave — he was called Abdallah
of the Cave or Grotto — he lived, died, and was buried, full of days
and honour.

There are many dervish monasteries, and many orders of dervishes.
Few amongst them are Egyptians ; and it is difficult to conceive the
grave, and in many ways elevated, character of the ancient inhabitants
of the Nile country having any sympathy with these excited ceremonies.
Yet it is certain that the mysticism of the dervishes strongly appealed
to the Egyptian temperament.

The dervishes are chiefly Turkish and Asiatic ; the monks and
freemasons of the East.

Apart from their wild forms of worship, there is often much good in
them. Not being cloistered they go out and take their part in the
world, follow various trades, belong to all sorts and conditions of men.
Most of them are of the humbler classes — tradesmen and artisans.
Many are the ordinary fellaheen, working on the banks of the Nile.
These work-a-day- dervishes seldom take part in their religious services
and ceremonies. The performing dervishes are set apart for these
purposes, and might almost be called priests of their order rather
than laymen, only that they are not qualified for the office by any
special training, or study, or " laying on of hands."

Those who give up their lives to ceremonies, performing at funerals,
festivals, weddings and the like, are called Fakeers. By this means
they earn their livelihood, and when the daily bread runs short, as it
Often does, they are not ashamed to beg. It is not a very wholesome
way of earning a livelihood, and encourages idleness. The people

In the LoUts-Land. 315

are inclined to give to this semi-religious sect when they see them in
want ; and these, knowing they have only to ask and to have, too often
give way to their natural indolence, and degenerate into a begging
community against which there is no law. Their dress is peculiar
and distinguishes them at once. Like Joseph's coat, it is a patch-
work of many colours. They usually carry a staff or crook, also
decorated with strips of coloured cloth, so that they sometimes
resemble a clown in a pantomime. In no sense are they a race apart,
and they are allowed to marry.

The different orders of dervishes have different dresses. One
order is distinguished by its black, dark blue, or dark green turbans :
a sect is again split up into divisions, of which the most fanatical are
known by their dark green turbans and banners. At their festivals
they perform all sorts of juggling feats : charm snakes, thrust nails
into their eyes and bodies, eat hot burning coals, and do many other
apparent impossibilities in their ecstasies.

These moods carry them to great lengths. When they have
whirled or howled themselves into a mad delirium, they will thrust
daggers into their cheeks or through their lips, and keep them there
whilst the blood flows down upon their whirling garments. At such
times their eyes, " in a fine frenzy rolling," often glow like coals of
fire, their features are distorted, they look, and for the moment are,
raging lunatics. Sane men, calm-judging, they are not ; rather
men possessed of a demon. It all reads more like a dream or a
hideous nightmare than a description of human beings gifted with
sense and intelligence.

Yet many are constant in their devotions, showing an earnestness
of purpose that, sensibly directed, might lead to great results.

Like the ordinary Mohammedans they are not restricted to times
and places for their rites and ceremonies. At night, when gathered
round a walee, you may frequently hear them giving voice to their
singular emotions. The Walees were saints and sheykhs of old,
many of whom are now invoked in prayer : the name is also given to
the tombs in which the bodies of the saints repose.

Nothing sounds more unearthly than these screams and bowlings
proceeding in the dead of night from these fanatical dervishes,
gathered in solemn conclave round the walee, overshadowed perhaps
by a palm-tree, whilst the dark night sky seems to look down upon
them with a serenity which might well rebuke their proceedings, and
the stars pass on their course in startled amazement.

Sometimes these midnight worshippers are in utter darkness, and
you can only faintly make out their curious outlines ; one will wear
a turban, and another a conical-shaped ornament very much like an
inverted flower-pot, and a third a broad-brimmed hat not unlike an
American wide-awake. At other times they will carry lanterns :
strange white constructions like those used at Chinese festivals, but
much larger ; or sometimes round and inflated, like an old-fashioned

u 2

3i6 In the LoUis-Land,

crinoline. These lanterns throw weird lights and shadows upon the
faces, upturned in all the rapt ecstasy of devotion, or the stolid gaze
of imitation. They whirl and dance, repeat long recitations, the Zikr
never comes to an end, they call over and over again upon the name
of Allah, until physical exhaustion too often closes the performance
and sends them to their beds to fall into a troubled sleep.

Many a time, in Cairo, we saw, at nightfall, a curious procession of
men passing through the streets, most of whom wore the conical
hat, with the dark cloak or abba thrown over the shoulders. In their
hands some carried the long, white, lighted lantern.

At first we were puzzled as to where they were going and what they
could be. Their bearing was grave and sedate. They walked as
men having a serious mission, looking neither to the right hand nor
to the left. We soon discovered that they were dervishes.

One night we followed them at a distance. As no one else did so,
they evidently awakened no curiosity in the people of Cairo ; whatever
their business it was nothing unusual. Passing out of the better parts
of the town, leaving the Esbekeeyeh Gardens behind us, we soon
found ourselves in the Greek quarter.

The streets were narrow and squalid ; Greek names were over the
shops, many of which seemed cigar divans, where a few people
could enter and drink and smoke — they were too small to admit more
than two or three at a time. Small side courts and passages led into
narrow defiles full of darkness and squalid misery. Into these we dare
not venture beyond the threshold, though we might have come upon
many a real and strange scene of Eastern life, full of the softening
picturesqueness of night with its lights and shadows, its gleams and
glooms ; many a trace of suffering humanity ; that sad but interesting
portion whose difficult task is to earn its daily bread — forming so much
of the mystery of life, and telling us so powerfully that progress is not
always upwards. If left for a time to themselves, what would become
of these people in the end ?

We followed the dervishes through squalid streets, their lanterns
throwing ghostly shadows as they walked. Always before us we kept
the singular group, whose silent tread scarcely awoke the faintest
echo, and added to the element of mystery. Were they conspirators
bent upon a modern gunpowder plot ?

Not at all. They were simply about to pay their usual devotions
to the tomb-mosque of one of their saints, where they would pass the
whole night in Zikr. Arrived at the small dome-shaped tomb, they
left a lantern outside the doorway, either as a sign that they were
engaged within in religious exercise, or as a protection from evil spirits.
Here they pass the night in devotion, and it says much for their
earnestness. These long vigils, even the influence of ecstasy admitted,
must be a weariness to the flesh that only strong religious faith and
fervent zeal could support.

The dervishes are venerated by the people. The tombs of the

In the Lotiis-Land.

317

saints — walees — are supposed to possess miraculous power, and
are much visited by those who are not dervishes. The sick and

suffering are especially found there ; they have strong faith in the
miraculous, born perhaps of the hope that exists more or less in

3i8 In the Lottis-Land,

every heart : it Is so easy to persuade ourselves into what we wish
to beUeve : and these sick Eastern folk, uneducated, narrow in thought,
superstitious, desirous of health and strength, pay their devotions to
the tomb and think the miraculous will happen. If it fails it is
something wrong in themselves ; they have been wanting in trust, or
have not sufficiently invoked the saint : they may say to each other,
"Perchance he sleepeth, or perhaps he is on a journey"; but the
power to accomplish the miracle they never doubt. This firm faith,
even if misdirected, is good. What should we also not often accom-
plish, often gain, with all our knowledge and enlightenment, our
encouragement to "ask in faith, nothing wavering," if we brought
as much conviction into our requests as these followers of a doctrine
not sealed with the gift of revelation ?

The tombs of the ancient warriors are equally venerated and
worshipped. In these cases, courage, devotion to one's country, are
supposed to stand in the place of a saintly life. Occasionally a
warrior has four or five different tombs in as many towns. Only
one tomb — perhaps not always that — can be genuine ; but these
Eastern people cling tenaciously to their superstitions and traditions,
and nothing would induce them to part even with a false tomb.
Some of these warriors were the "Companions of the Prophet" — a
special distinction — did much for the cause of el-Islam, and possess
many traditions. But the greater number of traditions are descended
from the Fatimites, a race founded by Fatima, Mohammed's favourite
daughter, who married the Khaliff Alee, and in so doing allied herself
with a house destined to misfortune.

The inhabitants of the towns, and especially of Cairo, whether
dervishes or not, are all more or less given to visiting the cemeteries :
held sacred less because they are consecrated ground than because
they contain the tombs of their relatives. Here more than anywhere
survive some of the traditions of ancient Egypt. The Karifeh, or
cemetery outside Cairo, is the largest in the East, and the most
important, containing many tombs of sheykhs, warriors and saints,
all more or less the objects of worship.

We have already stated how the ancient Egyptians considered that
behind every city of the living there lay an invisible city of the
dead. But in Cairo the real and tangible is also abundantly manifest.
Pilgrimages are constantly made from distant scenes to the tombs
of the saints.

There are certain days — holy days and Fridays — when the people
rise before the sun and make their way to the tombs. The place
becomes almost lively and animated. Palm branches, so favoured in
the East, give these crowds the air of a procession ; thrown on the
tombs, with their graceful leaves and curves, the place looks decorated
for a festival. Saints and departed relatives are invoked with fervency ;
the poor have food and money doled out to them.

The sun rises upon a singular scene : a multitude of kneeling

In the Lotus-Land. 319

people in all the picturesqueness of Eastern costume ; all intent upon
one idea. The palm branches are gilded by the rays of the sun ; so
are the small cupolas of the tombs, so distinctly Eastern, so solemn
and effective.

Not far off are the magnificent tombs of the Mamelukes, beautiful
in their decadence ; a refined and matchless picture ; without rival,
without imitation ; as though all who had gazed upon them had
despaired ever to reproduce these masterpieces of genius.

Above all shines the clear Eastern sky, unbroken by a cloud,
especially serene and beautiful at this hour of the morning : the
early dawn, when the evening star still shines in the west like a
ball of liquid silver, and the sky is full of changing colours : all to
vanish and evaporate when the sun makes his appearance, and a
broader light gradually floods the landscape.

The East is full of pictures, as it is full of romance, of historical
recollections both sacred and profane, dating back to ages compared
with which the Western world seems still in its infancy. There is
nothing commonplace in the East, nothing to shock artistic taste and
feeling ; the poorest and most wretched communities have still a
harmony of outline and colouring not only due to climate and an
unconscious spirit of adaptation, but distinctly an inheritance of the
past. This harmony is so general that only those realise it who take
the trouble to compare Eastern scenes and life and manners, the
architecture of houses, the flowing outlines of dress, with all that is
angular and inartistic, all that is so ugly and inharmonious in our own
and neighbouring lands.

Amongst the dervishes there are, as we have said, many different
orders ; and some have very little in common with others. The
ways and habits of the Howling Dervishes are not at all the same as
those of the Dancing Dervishes : and again both the Howling and
Dancing Dervishes are split up into factions and divisions. Each sect
has its own belief and peculiarities ; but there is no rivalry or
jealousy amongst them ; no attempt to wrest votaries one from the
other ; " each goes his way at his own pace," and leaves every
other to do likewise. There is even a certain freemasonry of good
fellowship running through them all ; and when they meet they never
omit the picturesque Eastern salutation, so beautiful in idea, though
probably too often degenerating, like our handshake, into a mere
form and ceremony.

Schism is unknown ; possessing the same end and aim, they are
indifferent to the roads by which these are attained. Each sect was
founded by a particular sheykh or saint ; all have their distinctive
badge or dress. One sect has white turbans and banners : its
members are for the most part fishermen, and in their processions
carry nets of many colours. This is the order founded by Abd-el-
Kader el-Ghilanee, Guardian of the tomb of Aboo Haneefeh, one of
the founders of Islam at Bagdad.

320 In the Lotus-Land.

There are four distinct orthodox sects of Islam, yet all based upon
the lines laid down by the prophet.

Of another order the turbans and banners are red. These were
founded by Ahmed el-Bedawee, the favourite saint of the Arabs, who
has his tomb near Tantah, and upon whose virtues we heard Osman
discourse.

This order is again divided into three sects ; one distinguished by
their long hair ; the other two carrying wooden swords and a whip ;
the turban being replaced by high caps ornamented with tufts of
coloured cloth, whilst rows of gaudy beads are strung over the breast.
Orientals at least possess one taste in common with savages : a love
for personal decoration, for cheap and glittering ornaments, and for
bright colours. These catch the eye and insensibly affect the
imagination.

Again, another sect has its banners and turbans green, and its
members will be found in great force at the fairs and festivals of
Dessook, one of the chief towns on the way from Alexandria to Cairo.

Few who are not acquainted with the people of Egypt have little
idea how large a part the dervishes play in the social affairs of the
country. Their mysticism, as we have said, has always forcibly
appealed to the Egyptian temperament. The present whirlings began
in a very small way ; mere swayings of the body as they read or
prayed : a movement supposed to assist the mind in becoming
absorbed in religious devotion. The idea grew, and in time became
exaggerated.

These whirlings are now turned into a sort of miracle. The
performer presently grows giddy, sight goes from him, his senses leave
him, his mind becomes sometimes a blank, sometimes a degree of
madness. At the end of from ten to twenty minutes, according to
his temperament, he falls often in convulsions, foaming at the mouth.
Physical exhaustion has set in.

The people now consider him possessed with the divine spirit : all
mortal and bodily functions are suspended : he is in the regions of
ecstasy. Another whirling dervish takes his place ; and so it goes on :
sometimes one solitary dervish performing, at others ten or twelve all
whirling together ; no skirt touching another ; arms thrown wildly
upward ; eyes glowing like coals of fire ; all, essentially mad for the
time being. Probably some go permanently mad ; whilst some may
even die in their delirium. The whole time they are shouting the
name of Allah ; but at last the words become a sort of croon, in
which no syllable can be distinguished.

At the time of their festivals — the birthday of the prophet is the
greatest of these — they go through the ceremony of Treading^ which
they call the Dawsah. It is perhaps the most insincere, the nearest
approach to charlatanism, of all their performances.

The sheykh has passed the night in prayer and fasting, supposed
to be necessary to that point of ecstasy which will work the

P
<

w

W

O

322 In the Lotus-Land.

miracle. At noon a cannon is fired from the Citadel, signal for
the ceremony to commence. A multitude has been collecting since
early morning, standing in the blazing heat, growing more and more
excited. A large body of soldiers, sent to keep order, add to the
animation of the scene. The report of the cannon has scarcely died
away when the sheykh mounts his horse and rides through a
prescribed boundary, followed by a fanatical mob. The people
placing absolute faith in the miracle, prostrate themselves on either
side, throw themselves in front of the horse, and allow it to pass
over them. The dervishes profess that they may be kicked, yet no
harm will follow. As a matter of fact the foolish people are often
taken up injured and insensible. Flags and trumpets are flying and
sounding everywhere, carried by certain orders of dervishes. Every-
thing is done to arouse fanaticism. The road is strewn with men's
bodies closely packed ; over these the horse passes as lightly as he
may tread, and the greater number of devotees escape injury.
A slight kick from the horse is accounted a special blessing ; but a
serious injury probably awakens the victim to reason.

The sheykh himself is dressed according to his order, wearing a
green turban. He is old and dignified. His face is upraised in
ecstasy ; he seems to behold a vision that is far off and invisible
to ordinary eyes : a state of mind probably more real than assumed,
the result of long vigil and fasting. The horse he rides is not shod —
happily for the victims. "When all is over they are smuggled away
to have their injuries attended to, and to recover their senses.

Many attempts have been made to put down this ceremony of the
Dawsah ; just as, some years ago, it was endeavoured to put down
the bull-fights in Spain. But it is difficult to abolish anything
established by long-continued custom if it interferes with the prejudices
of the people ; and the bull-fight and the Dawsah still hold their
own. True, the one appeals to the earthly and sensual in human
nature, whilst the other is supposed to minister to the spiritual ; but
it would be well if both came to an end. Yet the Spanish king
found that the reformation would jeopardize his throne ; and the
Khedive replied, when the matter was brought before him : " I am
not strong enough to do this thing."

Let us for a moment turn to a more peaceful scene ; the con-
templation of glories in which man plays little part.

Leaving the more modern Cairo, the region of hotels, and new
streets and houses, where at sundry corners donkey-boys are in-
vading " tourists " — that odious modern word, which has become
as applicable as it is universal — we pass into narrower, more typical
thoroughfares, on our way to the Citadel. Here and there the
immense portal and gigantic walls of a mosque cause us to linger in
wonder and admiration. The streets are croAvded with a motley
gathering. Turbans of every shade and colour are in evidence ;

^

In the Lotus- Land. 323

varying costumes, all having their interpretation. The men are
much in the majority ; but here and there a woman passes in her
hideous face-disguise, looking for all the world like a being set apart
by some loathsome malady. Instead of this, she may be beautiful as
a houri, captivating as a syren. We gave each the benefit of the
doubt, and decided to consider ourselves surrounded by angels wanting
only wings to fit them for Paradise. i- 1 v^

We pass on our way, for we have one end in view — the Citadel.
It is evening and the sun is going down. The walk is long and
tiring, and steep towards the end. Most of the time the Citadel
is in evidence, perched upon high rocks and looking impregnable.
It is also strongly fortified. The Citadel was first built in 11 66, by
Saladin, and many of the original portions remain. Above it rises
the Mosque of Mohammed AH, with its wonderful dome and slender
minarets. Outlined against the clear evening sky it seems less a
reality than a dream picture, possessing a charm and beauty beyond
all earthly dreams.

At length we reach a gateway which admits us within the citadel
walls : a gateway large and massive, and flanked by two towers : a
magnificent structure, meant to defy the ages. Within the walls lies
quite a town, full of objects of interest.

Not pausing this evening to examine these objects, we pass to yet
higher ground, and are soon on a level with the Mosque, which, seen
from all the surrounding country, has so long been a reality to us by
day, a vision haunting our dreams by night. Close to it, we see that
it is substantial enough. Its walls are not mere ethereal outlines,
vanishing to the touch, but solid and very costly material.

We do not enter the Mosque this evening, but turn to the outer
walls, where we overlook the city, the far-off country and the lowering
sun. It is indeed a wonderful view : as much a vision as anything
we shall see ever in Cairo or elsewhere. At our feet lies the busy hive,
teeming with Eastern life. Its flat roofs are conspicuous, its narrow,
tortuous streets seem countless as they lie clearly mapped out before
us. The Tombs of the Mamelukes, their fawn-coloured tone so much
like the pale sand of the desert, stand out in their matchless beauty,
their eternal solitude and silence. The rarefied atmosphere diminishes
the distance of the far-off objects. Crowds of people in a wide, open
space below seem on the verge of a tumult. Aleck our dragoman
says they are the faithful going to market or to mosque : nothing
more formidable, nothing more deadly. They are so far off that
it is like looking upon a panorama of animated but silent beings —
no sound reaches us even through this wonderful air. We notice
a long string of heavily-laden camels plodding their weary way
amongst them ; probably a caravanserai just arrived from across the
desert, and about to unload in the bazaars. We look down upon an
infinite number of mosques, trace many of their courts, some of which
are in partial ruin. The sun has almost reached the horizon, and a

324 In the Lotus-Land.

flood of golden light almost glorifies the city, gilds many a dome and
minaret, many a palm-tree, suggesting a passage in the Revelation :
" And I saw the New Jerusalem descending out of heaven, adorned
as a bride for her husband." No earthly scene could more closely
approach the vision of St. John the Divine.

Beyond, we trace the windings of the Nile, that ancient and sacred
river to which Egypt owes everything. It, too, catches the rays of
the setting sun and is flooded with gold and flashing with jewels,
dying out in the blue distance. We picture its course for 1800 miles,
every inch of the way full of interest, memorials of the past, ruins and
monuments that are nothing less than voices from the dead. We
carry our gaze yet beyond the city, and not far from the Nile we see
the forms of the Great Pyramids clearly outlined against the sky, the
sad Libyan Hills in the far-off background. Their immense size
is lost, but they look full of majesty and dignity, full of a strange
inexpressible repose. One feels that they might be fitting tombs for
our first parents, who, banished from the first Paradise, might here be
awaiting the second : shrines, resting-places at which to offer the
tears of regret, the homage of devotion ; for if sin came into the
world through them, so also through them man became heir to a yet
greater life and immortality. Made lower than the angels, he is
destined to rise above them.

Beyond all stretches the pathless desert, the boundless horizon :
a perfect picture of immensity and solitude. To such a spot would
David have hastened when he cried in his sorrow : " Oh that I
had the wings of a dove, that I might flee away ! " Such must
Mendelssohn have realised when those celestial strains flowed from
him : " In the wilderness build me a nest, and remain there for ever
at rest."

The words haunted us as we looked that evening upon this bound-
less desert, of which we yet only saw the beginning. In spirit we
were once more assisting at that wonderful Temple service, on the
banks of another but less classical river ; where many a time we
have listened to a boy's pure voice, echoing through those wonderful
arches, pulsing and waving through those solemn aisles, the words in
their repetition finding an echo in one's very heart's core : " In the
wilderness build me a nest, and remain there for ever at rest."
Again and yet again they echo forth as if the composer had been
unable himself to pass away from the words and felt all the charm of
the state which for him was realised all too soon, though not in any
earthly sense : "In the wilderness build me a nest, and remain there
for ever at rest." Succeeded later on by the calm, clear, convincing
voice of the Master, who for us has no equal, reminding his hearers
that the spirit may find a yet more perfect rest and peace than it
would discover if sought for ever in desert solitudes.

We gazed from those walls until the sun went down. The flood of
gold disappeared ; the heavenly was shut out, only the earthly remained.

In the Lotus-Land. 325

It is always so. Very soon the desert faded, the Pyramids became
vague outUnes in the mists of twilight, then invisible. We pictured
the Sphinx keeping watch and ward over them, its sleepless gaze turned
towards the regions of immortality : all its mystery, its weird influence
most felt when darkness falls and the stars pursue their silent course
through the deepening sky. A grey mist fell upon the city as we
looked this evening ; lights began to gleam ; a cool breeze sprang up
as the sun disappeared. The afterglow with all its brilliant effects
was soon over. Twilight does not linger here ; rapid the transition
from light to dark — and from darkness to light again.

It was time to turn away. We seemed to have been in touch with
a celestial vision whilst gazing upon the most ancient historical
ground the world contains. Here for untold ages and people and
tongues had the sun risen and set over these vast and solitary desert
plains : and here for ages yet to come will he run his course, when he
who writes, and you, fair friend, who read, shall have passed into a
Land that has no need of the sun by day, nor of the moon by night,
for the glory of God doth lighten it.

(^To be continued.)

-^^^^m^^^

ALONE.

Tnii skies are grey, the year is old,

The wind is moaning through the town ;

It comes from the far wood and wold,
By pastures desolate and brown.

The last leaves flutter from the bough,
Pale lamps shine dully through the mist.

What of the summer woodlands now
Where we two kissed?

The rain is dripping from the sky,
It splashes in the muddy street ;
Beside my burnt-out fire sit I

And hear the sound of hurrying feet.
They come, they go, they never stay;

My house is left me desolate ;:
No footstep ever, any day,
Stops at my gate !

E. Nesbit.

( 326 )

THE MANAGER'S SAFE.
By George Fosbery.

" "\"\ THAT are you doing there?"

^^ "Nothing, sir."

The answer came from a pale and feeble-looking youth, standing
before the open safe in the sanctum of the manager of the
Continental Banking Corporation Limited, Old Broad Street, E.G.

The question had been put by the manager himself on re-entering
his room after a momentary absence in the outer office. The clerk,
for such was the young man's position in the bank, flushed to the
roots of his hair, as the manager thrust him aside, and ostentatiously
secured the door to the safe.

Nothing more passed between the two. The clerk laid a slip of
paper with figures written upon it on the manager's table ; and having
thus apparently fulfilled the duty which brought him thither he went
out, closing the door gently behind him.

The manager watched him as he retired, watched him through a
transparent pane in the glass door after he had retired, watched him
as he took his hat from a peg, and watched him with especial eager-
ness as he passed through the swing doors on the way out (no doubt)
to dinner ; and the expression in the face of the great man might have
suggested to a witness, if there had been one, the existence of some
grave suspicion regarding the security of the contents of the safe.
After making an examination of the papers shut in behind the iron
door, in order to satisfy himself that they had or had not been
tampered with, and after transferring some papers from the safe to a
drawer of his writing-table which he locked up again quickly, an occu-
pation that seemed to suggest grave and moody reflections, and during
which he looked around him frequently to see that he was alone — the
manager turned his attention to the slip which had been placed on his
table by the young man who had just left the room.

Upon the slip were written these figures :

";2^io,ooo to-morrow, Saturday. Messrs. Bulling & Co. will call
for the second lot of bonds early on Monday."

" Ten thousand pounds ! " he muttered. " Saturday. What an
opportunity ! — this is Friday — if I can wait till to-morrow ! "

The manager pressed his hand to his forehead, and gave up his
thoughts to some problem that weighed upon him. Presently he
shook off this moodiness, and reaching out his arm, gave two sharp
strokes to a hand-bell standing beside his inkstand. The double
signal was a summons for the chief cashier, who answered it without
delay.

The Manager's Safe. 327

" Come in, Mr. Price. Shut the door, if you please."

The cashier did as he was bidden and came to the manager's table,
to hear what that gentleman had to say. But the latter did not speak,
he stood facing his colleague, and looking into his eyes with a scared
expression of countenance. Mr. Price was startled.

" Anything the matter, sir ? " he inquired.

"Yes."

" Nothing serious, I hope ? "

The manager did not reply. He appeared to be steadying him-
self, to be suppressing an excitement which was entirely unusual with
him. When he spoke at last, he seemed anxious to prove to himself
that his memory had not failed him.

" What time was it, Mr. Price, when you and I went down to the
strong-room this morning ? "

" It was precisely twelve o'clock, sir."

" You remember what bonds and securities I handed to you
there ? "

" Perfectly."

" Please to confirm my memory by enumerating them ? "

" Certainly, sir." And the cashier told them off on his fingers.
When he had finished, the manager reminded him that there was still
one lot of securities which he had omitted to mention. Did Mr.
Price recall what they were ?

" To be sure, sir ! how stupid of me ! There were also Messrs.
Bulling & Co.'s first lot of ^1,000 bonds."

" For what amount ? "

" Why, sir, you know as well as I do. They amount to ;£"8,ooo."

" You placed them all in the usual letter-basket, did you not ?"

" Yes, sir. But you were present yourself."

" Quite so, quite so. My observation, however, has failed me, and
I am anxious to take up the clue through you."

" I don't quite understand," began Mr. Price ; but his chief in-
terrupted him.

"You placed Messrs. BuUing's documents in the basket with all
the others — under my eyes. You brought the basket to my room
here — under my eyes. Finally, you deposited the basket and its
contents in my safe here — under my very eyes. Your memory con-
firms mine, does it not ? "

" Assuredly."

" What time is it now ? "

" Striking one, sir."

" When do Messrs. Bulling come for this first batch of bonds ?

" They will take them away at two o'clock."

" They cannot take them away."

" Why not ? " asked the cashier with surprise.

" They are gone already."

" Gone ! What do you mean ? "

328 The Managers Safe,

" They have been stolen ! You had better see for yourself.
Here is the key."

Mr. Price opened the safe, and made a careful search. In two
minutes he convinced himself that the bonds were missing from the
safe, and in five minutes more he satisfied himself that they were not
in the room ; unless, indeed, they were locked in the manager's desk
— an alternative which was instantly dismissed from his mind.

" I am entirely at a loss," he began.

" So am I, Mr. Price," broke in the manager. " I have not left
the room since you deposited the bonds in that safe. It is true, the
door of the safe has been standing open most of the time. But, on
the other hand, I have received no visitors ; not a soul has entered
the room but yourself."

" You forget, sir, that one of the clerks, young Mr. Aspin, brought
you a slip from me about the second batch of securities which are to
be withdrawn from the custody of the Bank of England to-morrow,
Saturday — ;£"i 0,000 worth, the receipt for which is, I believe, in your
possession."

The manager made no remark in response to the latter assertions
— concerning the bonds and the receipt believed to be in his posses-
sion. But he referred significantly to the young clerk and his
errand.

"Yes, Mr. Aspin was here for a few moments. I don't like to
suggest any suspicion against him— — — "

The manager hesitated. Mr. Price followed up the thread.

" It is somewhat suspicious, sir, that Mr. Aspin was actually alone
in this room for nearly half a minute, having entered by this door,
from behind the counter, at the very moment you were standing on
the other side of yonder door opening on the outer ofiice, while a
customer asked you a question."

" That is perfectly true, Price. I had not thought of that. More-
over— now that I come to recall the circumstance — young Aspin was
stooping over the open safe in a most suspicious manner, when I re-
entered the room."

" Subject to your approval, sir, I will question him before you take
any steps towards announcing the loss. He is a very respectable
youth, and may be perfectly innocent."

" I don't like to think for a moment that he is otherwise, Mr. Price.
Bring him here at once."

" I will do so — unless he has gone out. One o'clock is his dinner-
time." Mr. Price advanced to the door, but the manager stopped him.

"Wait a moment, Price. The suspicion is a very serious one.
Let us omit no precaution. We will make one more search."

Mr. Price assented. Going on his knees before the open safe, he
turned out each and every paper within, and replaced it in turn. The
bonds were ?iof there. He went round the room likewise. The
bonds were nowhere to be seen.

The Manager s Safe. 329

" Enough ! " at length exclaimed the manager. " Fetch Mr. Aspin.
And, before you bring him in, give instructions to your next in
command, that no officer is to leave the bank on any pretence what-
ever, till I give permission to the contrary."

"Yes, sir; it will be just as well to do so without further loss of
time."

As soon as the manager heard the door close, he looked around
him to make sure that he was alone. Then, taking his keys from his
pocket, he unlocked softly the drawer beneath his writing desk,
wheeled back his chair a few inches, unlocked the safe, and paused.

He appeared to listen for an instant. There was no sound of
approaching footsteps ; there was no shadow on either of the ground-
glass doors of anyone about to enter. With a rapidity and stealthiness
that denoted both fear and determination, he abstracted a parcel from
the drawer, stepped across to the safe, slipped the packet between the
leaves of a ledger within the safe, secured the iron door, returned to
his table, locked the drawer, put the keys in his pocket, drew up his
chair, and returned to his former position.

But some pecuUarity of the packet had been noticed by him not-
withstanding the rapidity of the action.

" There is surely one missing. There ought to have been eight."

Some two minutes had elapsed when the cashier returned alone.
The manager still sat in the same attitude. Apparently, he had not
moved during the other's absence. He started as Mr. Price spoke to
him.

" I am sorry to say, sir, that young Aspin went out immediately
after you noticed his suspicious presence in this room. There is
nothing to be done but to wait till he returns at two o'clock."

" What if he should not return ? " said the manager.

" If he is innocent, he will return as a matter of course. And, if
he is guilty, he will return to allay suspicion. His failure to return
would be his condemnation."

" Do you think so ? "

" I am sure of it."

" But, consider," said the manager, " Messrs. Bulling & Co. will
come for their bonds at two o'clock. No explanation which we can at
present give will reconcile them to the temporary loss of their property."

Mr. Price reflected for a while. He seemed to be more ready of
resource than his superior officer.

" You, sir, had better go yourself immediately to Scotland Yard
to give notice of this robbery to the police. I will receive Messrs.
Bulling, and explain to them that you have been suddenly summoned
thither on extremely urgent business. I will ask them to call again an
hour later."

" Admirable ! " exclaimed the manager, appreciatively. " By three
o'clock, we shall have discovered something either from Mr. Aspin or
otherwise."

VOL. LIV. X

330 The Manager^ s Safe,

" I hope so."

" By the way, Mr. Price," added the manager finally, " here is the
key of my writing-table." He detached it from the bunch which
hung on a chain secured round his waist. " Please to look through
every drawer, and satisfy yourself that the missing bonds have not
merely been mislaid."

" I will do so, sir." And as the manager buttoned up his tight-
fitting frock coat and clapped on his high hat, Mr. Price involuntarily
reflected that the lost documents could not have transferred them-
selves miraculously to the manager's pockets without the fact
disturbing fatally the admirable cut of that gentleman's garments.

" No official may leave the bank on any pretext whatever till I
return from Scotland Yard," said the manager.

Mr. Price bowed acquiescence, and in a moment more the manager
left him.

Presently the cashier summed up the situation. " I've turned out
the safe twice, and seen it locked. I can affirm that Messrs.
Bulling's bonds are not there. Pve turned out the drawers of this
writing-table. The bonds are not here. The manager has not got
them. I didn't take 'em. Young Aspin must have done it. Will he
come back ? He's nearly due now."

Two o'clock struck, but Mr. Aspin had not returned. Messrs.
Bulling sent a trusted messenger for the bonds. Mr. Price made the
necessary excuse, and requested him to return at three-thirty. Half-
past-two came, but no sign of Mr. Aspin. Indeed, when the
manager returned, shortly after three o'clock, accompanied by detec-
tives, Mr. Aspin had not yet put in an appearance. In short,
Mr. Aspin did not return. He had bolted, evidently.

And this is how it came to pass. On leaving the bank at half-past
one, the manager crossed the street, and, instead of hurrying to
Scotland Yard, placed himself in the shadow of a doorway, where he
could not be perceived through the ground-glass windows of the
bank, and where he had a full view of the street to right and left.

He watched here for about five or ten minutes, when the figure of
Mr. Aspin, on his return from dinner, was perceived coming down
the street on the opposite side.

Before the young man reached the steps of the bank, he was
stopped by the manager, who said sharply —
" Follow me ! "

The manager walked briskly along, looking back frequently, in
order to see that his command was attended to. The miserable boy
dared not disobey. Presently, in an unfrequented side street, the
manager hailed a hansom. He beckoned Mr. Aspin to seat himself
beside him within the cab.

" Scotland Yard ! " cried the manager to the driver. " And put
the glass down."

On hearing their destination, Aspin turned as white as a sheet.

The Managers Safe, 331

Before he could recover himself enough to speak, the manager
informed him that the theft of Messrs. Bulling & Co.'s bonds had
been discovered, and that the suspicions which pointed to Mr. Aspin
as the thief were simply overwhelming.

This announcement frightened Mr. Aspin so much that he tried
to jump out of the hansom ; but he was held back in a powerful

grip.

" No, no, young man, you must listen to me. I do not wish to be
hard on you, even if you are indeed guilty. You must perceive by
this time that you are ruined for life, if the guilt attaches to you "

" I know it, I know it ! " exclaimed the youth, breaking into tears.
" What will my poor mother say ? "

The manager showed some astonishment at the boy's burst of
grief. Presently, however, he continued :

" Look here, young sir ! I will help you out of this mess —
ahem ! — for your mother's sake ! "

" Oh, sir ! God bless you for saying that ! "

" I mean it too ; your escape can be managed. I impose a con-
dition, however. It is this. You will take train immediately for
Dover. You will cross to Calais. I will throw everybody off the
scent. You will travel through, without stopping, to Spain. There
you will be safe from arrest."

" But I have no money."

" I will provide for that. Here is a fifty-pound note. You will go
to Gaze's Tourist Office in the Strand, and buy two tickets for Madrid."

" Why two tickets, sir ? "

"To avert suspicion. One of them you will use yourself; the
other I will take care of myself. At Madrid you will stay at the
Hotel de Paris, till you receive from me another fifty-pound note —
ahem ! — for your mother's sake."

" Oh, sir, how can I thank you ? "

" After that you must make your own way in the world — abroad —
in America — in any country where our police cannot find you."

" I will, sir — I will. I shall never forget your kindness."

" Say no more. We will get out here." And the manager stopped
the cab.

" But, if you please, sir, here's the bond ; I will give it back to
you."

" What bond ? " asked the manager, with a start.

" The thousand-pound bond I stole, sir," whimpered the lad. " It
was on the top of the bundle. I was afraid to take the rest."

The manager looked at him with blank astonishment in his face as
Aspin drew a paper from within his waistcoat and handed it over. It
was one of Messrs. Bulling & Co.'s securities — " Payable to Bearer."

The manager gazed first at the bond, then at the boy. The bewil-
derment in the great man's face gave way to a curious smile.

" You are right," he said at last. " I will take care of it."

X 2

332 The Managers Safe.

They descended from the cab a few yards off Gaze's Tourist Office^
and the manager paid the driver.

" You know what you have to do," said he to Aspin, pointing to
the name over the door. " I will wait for you here."

When the clerk emerged again from Messrs. Gaze's, he handed one
of the two tickets he had purchased to the manager, who said quickly —

" Good-bye ! And, by the way, remember that I shall follow you
now and see you off — from a distance."

Next morning Mr. Aspin was in Paris. There the devil in him
revived to some extent. He determined to spend a couple of days
in the " City of Pleasure," and to have a spree. Had not the manager
promised to throw everyone off the scent ?

Meantime, the manager strolled down to Scotland Yard. There he
gave his reasons for believing that a theft of valuable bonds had taken
place. It was impossible to say how and by whom they had been
abstracted. He desired that an able detective should return with
him to the city, to make an investigation and give his advice. The
request was promptly complied with.

Shortly before three o'clock the manager entered the bank, ac-
companied by two detectives from the Criminal Investigation Depart-
ment— namely. Inspector Crump and another officer in plain clothes.
They were met by the cashier with the significant announcement that
young Mr. Aspin had not returned after his dinner-hour.

"There can be no doubt," added Mr. Price, "that our suspicions
of him were well-founded."

The manager and the chief detective retired to the sanctum of the
former. Mr. Price and the second police officer were asked to hold
themselves in readiness for a summons to join them.

The circumstances already detailed in the conversation between the
manager and cashier were forthwith communicated to the Inspector.
The manager, moreover, opened the safe, and described how the
various parcels of bonds brought from the strong room had been laid
in a row on the middle shelf; and how he had perceived, almost
immediately after Mr. Aspin had left the room, a gap in the row where
Messrs. Bulling & Co.'s script had been laid. The Inspector was
then requested to make a careful survey of the room and its contents.

While he was doing this, the manager deftly slipped a paper from
his pocket into the leaves of a ledger within the safe, much in the
same manner, it will be remembered, as he had acted with another
packet. Having done this, he " swung to " the door, which fastened
with a snap.

During this operation. Inspector Crump was looking in the opposite
direction. But he was doing so to some purpose ; for he saw the
movements of the manager clearly reflected in the ground-glass
partition separating the apartment from the general office. There was
something about the manager's action which fixed the circumstance in
his mind.

I

The Managers Safe. 333

The detective next interviewed the cashier, whose story confirmed
that of his superior officer.

Now the duty of the detective was clear. Even if there remained
a doubt as to Mr. Aspin's guilt, it was absolutely necessary to discover
what had become of that young gentleman. Inquiry was therefore
made of his colleagues in the office ; but no one could offer a clue to
the missing clerk's movements.

" He has probably made for the Continent," suggested the manager.

" Do you think so, sir ? " asked Inspector Crump, in reply, while
he looked in the face of the banker. " If so, we will soon overtake
him ; he hasn't much more than an hour's start of the telegraph."
And the detective laughed. The idea appeared to impress the
manager.

" The law has a long arm — eh, Mr. Crump ? "

" Yes, sir — particularly in dealing with boys who have short heads,"
said the detective, eyeing the manager steadily.

" I hope you'll prove a match for him," said the manager, with a
smile.

" I think we shall, sir. By-the-bye, I suppose he couldn't make
anything out of the bonds in this country ? "

"It is very unlikely."

" Do you think, sir, that he had any money about him to go away
with ? "

" I cannot say ; but I'll inquire."

The answer brought by Mr. Price to this inquiry was one that pro-
voked a hearty laugh.

" Mr. Aspin was ' hard up.' He was always ' hard up.' He had
borrowed half-a-crown that very morning to pay for his dinner."

After some further information as to Mr. Aspin's affairs had been
asked for by Mr. Crump, and given to him, that gentleman decided
to make inquiries of Mrs. Aspin, and to have that lady's house watched
in case her son should return home.

" I will also cause a description of young Aspin to be circulated
in order that he may be traced, watched, and, if possible, arrested.
All this will keep us occupied till to-morrow morning, when you may
expect me here to report progress. I will leave my companion with
you. He may be wanted."

Inspector Crump departed, after whispering to his comrade the
curious admonition : " Watch the manager. If he hasn't got the
bonds himself, my name's not Crump ! "

When Mr. Bulling, of Messrs. Bulling & Company, called for their
securities, an explanation was given for not delivering them which
bore all the appearance of good faith. The fact of the theft was more
unfortunate than alarming, for, of course, the Bank would make good
the loss. Under the unhappy circumstances, Messrs. Bulling &
Company consented to fall in with the Bank's convenience, and to
wait until the lost property should be recovered, while the manager,

334 ^^^^ Managers Safe,

on behalf of the directors, offered temporary security to the owners of
the bonds — an offer which they considered unnecessary, in view of
the status of the Bank.

At ten o'clock the following morning Inspector Crump arrived in
Old Broad Street. He was greeted by the manager and some of the
directors of the Corporation. The detective addressed himself to the
manager with a confidence and respect which set that gentleman
entirely at his ease.

"The supposition you expressed, sir, has been fully justified. The
young man suspected of stealing the bonds crossed to Calais yester-
day. I have arranged that he will not slip through our fingers. I
cannot say more at present. The first information which I obtained
concerning him was given by Messrs. Gaze, the tourist agents, at
whose office he bought two tickets for Madrid. From the fact of his
taking two tickets, it is presumed that he is travelling in company
with a female, possibly an accomplice. He paid Messrs. Gaze with a
fifty-pound note, of which I have taken the number. The question
is. Where did he get the fifty-pound note ? Can you tell me ? "

At first the manager made no reply, and he averted his eyes under
the steady but seemingly frank regard of the detective. Then, labour-
ing under evident excitement, he stepped over to the safe, opened it,
drew out a little drawer within, and exclaimed :

" Good heavens, that's gone too ! "

" AVhat do you mean, sir ? "

" I had a fifty-pound note, in this drawer." He referred to his
pocket-book for the number and read it out. The detective smiled
as he announced that his figures were the same. The directors looked
at one another meaningly, being full of sympathy for their head official.

At this moment, Mr. Price entered and reminded the manager of
an appointment at the Bank of England, an appointment (it will be
remembered) to exchange a receipt of the Bank of England for
^10,000 worth of bonds deposited there and belonging to Messrs.
Bulling. The manager made his excuses to the directors, promised
to be back in half-an-hour, and went out.

As soon as Inspector Crump knew him to be off the premises, he
turned to the directors and said sharply :

" Gentlemen, you must excuse me if I am abrupt. I am acting in
your interests, and I am obliged to be plain-spoken. I will stake my
reputation that the man who has just left the room is responsible for
the disappearance of Messrs. Bulling & Company's bonds."

" No, no, no ! Impossible ! Impossible ! " ejaculated his worthy
listeners, throwing up their hands in deprecation of the wrong done to
their faithful servant by the mere suggestion.

" I beg pardon," said the detective. " I am accustomed to read
guilt or innocence in a man's manners, as well as his actions. Your
manager tries to hide from me a guilty conscience and he cannot
do it."

The Managers Safe. 335

" What right have you to say such things ? " asked the indignant
Board of Directors in one voice.

The Inspector continued in his own way.

" From what I hear of the boy Aspin, he hasn't the pluck to steal
and hide a great parcel of bonds. He hadn't even an opportunity of
doing so, without the certainty of the manager seeing them protruding
from his pocket. The lad may have stolen the fifty-pound note, or
he may have had it given to him ; but, take my word for it, in this
unfortunate business, he is more sinned against than sinning."

" If that is all you have to say," broke in the chairman of the Board
of Directors, " we shall be obliged by your keeping your opinions to
yourself, and confining yourself to your duty."

" It is my duty to warn you, sir," retorted the detective. " The
manager has averted suspicion by throwing it on Mr. Aspin. I don't
know if Aspin is his dupe or his confederate, or both. But we must
not lose sight of the manager till we have had it out with Aspin.
Not that the young one has the bonds. The old one has the bonds
himself, or he has posted them to Spain."

" Spain ! " exclaimed the directors.

"Yes," and the Inspector laughed, "no extradition treaty between
this country and Spain, you see."

" But, if the manager is the culprit, why has he risked detection by
staying here ? "

" Why, sir, because he hasn't got all the bonds he wants, I should
say."

" Monstrous ! Perfectly monstrous ! " declared the directors uncon-
vinced.

" Besides," urged one of them, " he could not reach Spain before
his absence was discovered, and we could overtake him by
telegraph."

" Think so, sir ? " said the detective. " Why, he might slip off
unperceived to-night, be in Paris on Sunday morning, and across the
Spanish frontier before you gentlemen are awake on Monday. Then
where are you ? "

The directors could hardly fail to appreciate these remarks,
although they still remained incredulous.

" There is not the slightest foundation," urged one of them, " for
suspecting that the manager has any intention whatever of running
away to Spain or anywhere else."

" Excuse me, sir," returned the detective, " but it is my business
to suspect. Please to remember that although Mr. Aspin has ab-
sconded, we have only the manager's story against him. We ought
to hear what the young man has to say. Remember, that the bonds
were in the manager's possession, and that the missing fifty-pound
note was the manager's. How do we know that the second tourist's
ticket to Spain is not for the manager's use ? I have ascertained for
a fact that Mr. Aspin had no companion with him."

33^

The Managers Safe.

" Then what is your advice, Mr. Crump ? "

" My advice, gentlemen, is — treat the manager as usual, and wait
till he runs away with all he can lay hands on ! "

At this curious counsel, the several elderly gentlemen constituting
the Board of Directors of the Continental Banking Corporation
uttered one cry of fear and astonishment.

" But why not arrest him at once ? "

" Because he has possibly provided against that event, by sending
away the bonds he stole yesterday, and we could prove nothing."

"What on earth then, are we to do?"

" Treat him just as usual, I say — just as if nothing had happened,
gentlemen. Leave the rest to me."

When the manager returned, he carried a small black bag in his
hand. This he locked up in his safe. One of the directors
suggested that any valuable papers ought to be deposited in the
strong room. But the manager demurred.

" They will be safe enough here," he declared, in a casual manner.

The directors began to suspect in their hearts that there might be
some wisdom in attending to the detective's warning. They took
care, however, not to betray themselves.

It was comparatively early on Sunday morning, before the good
Paris folk had sat down to dejeuner^ that Mr. Aspin, having
thoroughly enjoyed his short sojourn in the French capital, betook
himself to the railway station where he intended to take train in his
flight towards sanctuary.

But his steps were arrested before the scene of an accident in the
street. A little crowd was collecting round a hired conveyance
which had been upset. The occupant, a middle-aged man with a
dark beard, had been thrown out, and was stunned by the fall. A
hand-bag lay close beside him ; it had burst open, and some of the
contents were slipping from its mouth.

One of these papers Mr. Aspin raised out of the mud. As he did
so a cry of surprise escaped him ; the document was the very same
bond, belonging to Messrs. Bulling and Company, which he had
stolen and restored.

A couple of bystanders attempted to raise the fallen stranger.
Their efforts displaced a false beard, which fell to the ground and
disclosed to Mr. Aspin's astonished eyes the features of the manager
of the Continental Banking Corporation.

" You know this gentleman ? " asked a voice in English, and a
hand was laid on Aspin's shoulder.

" I — I — I — thought I did ! " stammered the lad, fearing to betray
himself.

" You had better say ' yes ' at once, Mr. Aspin. I am a detective
from Scotland Yard, and I presume that this gentleman is the person
I expected to find sooner or later in your company."

The Manager's Safe, 337

The young man made a virtue of necessity. He allowed himself
to be taken back to England in tow, and confessed his share in
the robbery of the bank — a point which went in his favour in
settling up.

The manager followed later, also in tow. He was scarcely let off
so easily as the lad Aspin, and he is not likely to do any banking
for some years to come.

y^ 7^ y^ ypf ^ y^

" How did the manager escape ? " said Inspector Crump, deeply
mortified at having been " bested," in spite of all his suspicions and
all his precautions.

" Why, it was this way. The manager goes home that Saturday
afternoon, looking as innocent as a saint, and carrying a hand-bag
crammed full of bonds.

" So I says to him, ' Not much fear of my troubling you, sir, till
Monday. That young rascal Aspin won't betray himself all at once,
I guess, wherever he is now. We must be content to watch him.'

" Says the manager, ' I want a little rest badly. This affair has
upset me terribly. Don't worry me if you can help it. on the Sabbath
day ! ' 'I won't, sir,' says I.

" I put my watchers on — one in front, and the other behind, his
private residence. They were both good men. But he fooled one
of them entirely. Just as the evening was getting dark, the parlour-
maid hails a four-wheeler from the stand opposite, and brings a
Gladstone bag along, and out comes a gent muffled up to the eyes,
and cabby is told to drive to Euston like mad. My man stationed
in front of the house follows in haste, believing it to be the manager.
It wasn't ! He started two minutes later, and landed at Charing
Cross, while my man was messing about the London and North
Western Railway.

" How did I find it out ? Why, I went round as usual to see how
my men were getting on, and I found one gone. Up I marches to
the cab stand, asks a cabby some questions. Front man on the rank
says he was hailed to the house, but a growler got the fare to Euston.
Presently another gent leaves the house in another growler. He
describes this gentleman and says he heard him holloa ' Charing
Cross.' That's how I knew.

"And then I telegraphed on to Folkstone, Dover, and Paris,
mighty sharp, but the manager disguised himself before he got to
Dover ; and, by Jove ! if it hadn't been for the carriage accident in
Paris, we should have lost him ! "

VOL. LIV. X

*

( 338 )

AN OLD MAN'S DARLING.

By C. J. Langston.

T REALLY am the wrong side uppermost of middle age ; but
-■- methinks I should feel surprised, and a sense of personal injury,
if any one told me so. We are such creatures of contradiction even
to ourselves. I had been in the thick of the battle of life, " stormed
at by shot and shell," and yet never felt the keen point of an arrow
from Cupid's bow — at least, never seriously wounded ; for there was
that fair face, when I was still in my teens, of Mary G., those large
lustrous eyes, like an Eastern dove, surrounded by an aureola of
golden curls, so suddenly to become the saint she looked ; for the
face faded into cloudland, and was sent only to remind one of
heaven.

Bonnie nephews and nieces — why will they grow so tall ? — re-
peatedly declare — " Oh, Uncle Fred will never marry ! " Probably
the wish is father to the thought. Possibly they may have heard of
contingent reversions.

" Nothing happens but the unforeseen." I am no longer billet-
doux and bullet-proof. I haul down my colours. The citadel is
taken without assault. I expect no mercy from my fifty particular
friends ; yet suffer me to plead extenuating circumstances.

I was deeply interested in the case of my young friend, Victor B.,
one of Nature's royal lineage, every inch a king. Above the ordinary
height, and unusually handsome, his dark flashing eye and haughty
demeanour struck fire from the heart of a young lady as unyielding
as himself. Alas, he was credited with the only crime which Mrs.
Grundy never forgives — poverty ! Her parents declared that she
might have any one else, ample dowry, every comfort ; but such an
alliance was not to be thought of.

"The men you suggest to me," protested the indignant girl, "are
mere puppets. Must I stoop to conquer them ? "

" Dora, consider society," replied her mother.

" Would you sacrifice me to society ! Never, if I can help it ! "

" Well, then, your own set, your friends."

" I tell you, mother, Victor towers above all, and now that I know
he loves me, I will never — never "

" Hush ! hush ! Don't say another word just now."

I was appealed to as a friend of both families, as a sedate old
bachelor, not likely to be moved by sentiment, especially such a
sentiment as love. I was entreated to call upon Miss L., and, as the
confidential friend of her friend, she received me with charming
docility.

An Old Man's Darling. 339

Perhaps she divined, with a woman's shrewdness, where lay my
sympathy. However, " England expects, etc.," and I duly decanted
the fine old crusted platitudes and arguments against love and
cottage bread. " Had she really considered the severance of social
ties, the sacrifice of ease, position "

" Not position. Mine will be higher than ever with him."

" Besides," said I, quoting the words of an old song, " ' Love not !
The thing you love may change.' "

Her colour heightened.

" A young man, singularly handsome, must have many admirers," I
continued. "Among them you have heard, I believe, of Mrs. P.,
the rich widow, and the Hon. Miss C. Well, without adopting the
conclusion that Victor is too much a lady's man ever to be the man
of one lady, are you quite sure that his affection is strong enough to
bear you up on the changeful tide of life ? "

" If not, it will grow with our growth," answered Dora.

" Or," continued I, taking aim once more, " do you realise his
vehemently impulsive temper, the fierce flash of that dark eye which
demands implicit obedience. I must say that, knowing the disposition
of each, I should tremble if there were even momentary collision.
It would be like the meeting of two express engines with the steam
full on — a catastrophe and wreckage. You must own that he is like
a lion when crossed, and you have but one head."

" Ah, and but one heart ; and that I have given wholly and un-
changeably to him. I fear nothing — believe everything " — clasping
her hands.

I could say no more, or it would have been " Bless you a thousand
times ! " so I had to leave Una and her lion alone. Not here did I
capitulate. In the imposing presence of Victor, I hardly knew what
to urge. I saw at once that I might as well attempt to turn the
torrent of Niagara. He who from childhood had brooked no opposi-
tion would brook none now. He stood silently twirling his heavy
moustache, as I ventured candidly but cautiously to state what duty
had prompted me to urge against the match. During my description
of his character, fixed by the fascination of his glittering eye, I fairly
trembled, as I saw him bite his lips in restraining anger, and knew
the strength of his massive arm, until the old gentle feeling came like
sunlight over his face as I concluded :

" Well, my dear Victor, since you are both so decided, what can an
old friend do but help you ? "

Seeing that poverty was the only obstacle, Victor made up his
mind at once to overcome it. For energy and enterprise such as his.
Greater Britain alone could furnish scope. All was quickly arranged ;
a berth was secured in the splendid steamship Sapphire^ and three
days before she sailed for Australia, Dora and I waved our adieus at
the Great Western Station. He was all animation and hope. He
would breast the tide of adverse circumstance ; he would come back

340 An Old Man's Darling.

in three years laden with the spoils of commercial conquest ; and
then — Ah, well, how often have I seen a stately ship glide out of
the harbour, buoyant with hope, laden with golden promises, and
when the dark days came watched and waited for her return !

I must say that I should like to have seen a little emotion at
parting. Never had Victor looked more handsome ; Dora never
more conscious of her power, or less inclined to "play the woman."
Perhaps if I could have seen them an hour later, his face hidden
behind the Standard^ and she in the solitude of her room, I might
have argued differently.

But there was one who felt the departure of Victor keenly. His
only sister — the "princess," I always call her — was cast in the same
imperious mould, and had the like commanding presence ; and, need
I say of a daughter of the proud Devonian family of B. she was
exceeding fair. Delicate in health ; threatened, indeed, at that time
with a complaint which sometimes clothes its victims with ethereal
beauty ; there had always been close companionship between brother
and sister.

I had to console her. Fancy a middle-aged bachelor, to whom a
thing of beauty is still a joy for ever, whose sensitive nature renders
him too susceptible of a fair girl just blossoming into womanhood ; a
fair girl in tears, too, confiding in an artless way her sudden sorrow,
her hopes and fears as to the absent one. I had no fear about him ;
he will be sure to roughhew his way to the front ; but I began to fear
about myself, lest strong sympathy, which they say is akin to love,
might carry me over the border.

I came away ; but " parting is such sweet sorrow," I dare not
analyse my feelings. I only knew that the sky overhead had a
brighter blue, and sunshine, all too transient, prevailed within. I
thought my heart had been buried long ago, like Pompeii, under cold
grey ashes, and behold it proved " a self-surviving thing of power."
AVhen reality is dull, how pleasant is dreamland.

" Come again soon," said she ; " I do so like to talk to you about
Victor."

Thrice happy Victor, thought I ; would I were half as young and
handsome as he !

You should have seen the care with which I chose the finest rose
in the market, the anxiety about that lovely spray of maidenhair,
and the eagerness with which I presented the buttonhole to my
princess.

As she sat dallying with the flower, her cough bringing the colour
to her cheek, and her large eyes looking dreamily upon me, the fear
stung me. Will she also pass to the land of shadows, and my life
change to perpetual eclipse ? I sought eagerly to divert her, a fund
of anecdote and my keen sense of humour coming to the rescue,
musing all the while whether she had any idea that " all the current of
my being " set towards her.

Alt Old Man's Darling. 341

Oh, no ! Her very simplicity disconcerted me, her remarks showed
the half-paternal estimation in which I was held.

" You are so good and kind ; my dear father could not have been
kinder ! "

Then again, when I urged her to give me her photo, as a companion
picture to that of Victor, how naively she replied :

" I must have it taken, because I shall never be younger, or look
better, shall I ? "

I think the very coyness and indifference of my princess, combined
with occasional hauteur, spurred me onwards, onwards, I scarcely
knew or cared whither.

Not that checks were w^anting. My frequent visits excited notice
and remarks.

"Well, if Uncle Fred really means to marry, why does he not
marry some one of his own age ? "

That's just what middle-aged gentlemen, bless them, seldom do.
Years ago I exclaimed that, if I married, it would certainly be some
girl young enough to be my daughter. Suitable age ! think what that
might mean to some folks — false hair, false teeth, false everything.
Fancy fervent protestations shouted through an ear trumpet ! Oh,
no ! as I pathetically wrote to my princess in an acrostic :

" Ah, well for me that beauty grows not old,
Fair faces still with fuller years unfold,
Relume the past, and tinge the setting sun with gold."

And as the wheels of life drag heavily, and I scornfully measure
the friendship, fashion, and frivolity of the world, how solemnly sweet
is the remembrance that there is still an Eden guarded by angels of
purity and innocence, where true love alone can enter.

I watched the princess with increasing solicitude, my own health
being most frail, and at times one almost wished that if no happier
union were attainable, she and I might glide, hand in hand, down the
dark valley together, and pass behind the veil. Happily, however,
the doctor's predictions and our own fears were not realised, for a
change to her native air wrought wonders. Health and strength
partly returned, and, as I walked wath her by the sounding sea, more
than once the lines of Montrose crossed the mind :

" He either fears his fate too much,
Or his desert is small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
And win or lose it all ! "

Yet the dream was so delicious — the idea so enchanting. Why
should I risk an awakening ? But I ventured delicately to ascertain
whether the heart beating so near mine were quite free, and trembled
till I heard :

" I am not engaged, and never have been."

I remembered her cousin's proposal — and discomfiture.

342 An Old Man's Darling,

"The latest opportunity, I think, was Winstanley?"

" Yes ; but I gave him no encouragement ; in fact, I don't want to
marry, unless any one will be my slave," said she laughing.

It was on my tongue to answer conclusively, but I thought it would
be taking an unfair advantage.

Perhaps it was a little Quixotic on my part to call on Winstanley,
and clearly to learn that I was not trespassing ; a rival I could not
be, with such a tall, fine-looking young fellow as he in the field.

Open as the day, he frankly confessed that he long looked upon
his fair cousin " as his prize " in the matrimonial lottery, and was
taken aback by her rejection ; adding, " I can't make her out."

I was also puzzled. At times the princess was gracious, and
invited confidence ; then suddenly distant and haughty. All around
must have noticed my devotion ; could the object of it fail to
perceive ?

Months passed, and remembering that Victor was her guardian, I
ventured with considerable apprehension to submit the case to him,
and be influenced by his opinion. My fears pictured the lion's
tempestuous wrath, or at least, merciless prohibition, and when, in
two months the answer came, my breath shortened when I opened it.

It certainly was different from what I expected. In his large,
legible hand, he described, page after page, his exploits in Australia ;
his success with a ranch, his numerous plans. I began to think my
last letter had miscarried, when I spied an obscure postscript :
" By the way, you must exercise your own judgment, as doubtless my
sister will, without any direction from me."

Fool that I was to imagine that the idea which thrilled my whole
being could really move another, even her brother. However, I had
done the right thing, and received a kind of negative approbation, and
when next I called, and the princess seemed in one of her happiest
moods, I presented this ballad which I had written, and asked her to
set it to music.

" O lady fair, can I declare,

One half my burning love for thee ;
O lady fair, shall I despair
If thou should'st be unkind to me ?

O love that leaves an aching heart.

And warps the mind with fancies chill ;

We may not meet, we must not part ;
For, lady fair, I love thee still.

And life would prove a dire eclipse.

And all my senses pall and fade.
Without the pressure of thy lips

And that bright sun those eyes have made.

O lady fair, can I declare,

For thee I yearn, I hope, I sigh ;
O lady fair, shall I despair?

For thee I live, for thee would die ! "

1

An Old Man's Darling, 343

During the reading I watched her narrowly, anxiously. It seemed
as if I had staked all on this last throw. Her beautiful face flushed,
and a strange light shone in the dreamy eyes ; and then sadness
came like moonlight, and the cheeks were white, and her lips moved
without sound. Half kneeling I murmured plaintively :

" Can you — will you forgive me ? "

She composed herself ; the calm, strong spirit of her family came to
the front, as she replied, not unkindly :

" It is a pretty thing. I must practise an accompaniment. When
will you call again

?

Then I had not been spurned, repelled, rejected. I rushed along
the streets with a kind of electric buoyancy, as if the days of my
youth had run back to tell me that it is a happy world after all. I
tried to leap over the great gulf fixed between me and my princess
(that of disparity in age) by comparison.

There was Colonel F., nearly sixty — a long way ahead of me —
married only last week to a lady of twenty. He settled ;£soo a
year on her, and society immediately discovered it was an excellent
match, for the orphan girl had not a penny. There was my
neighbour S., a widower with three crawling children, and a stipend
of ;!^i5o, married the village belle thirty years his junior. Mrs.
Grundy did not forbid the banns, only declared, " How could he
throw himself away ! " My venerable friend, Montagu Oxenden
too, dipping into the lucky bag of matrimony within the shadow
of seventy, and living happily ever afterwards.

He cut through the gossamer compliment of congratulation abruptly
with :

" No doubt you think there's no fool like the old fool ! "

" Far from it," I replied. " ' It is never too late to mend.' " I
thought also of Swift and Stella, of John Jarndyce and Dame Durden.

Yet why should I anticipate ; the princess had said nothing ; but
ardent lovers, like certain other curious animals, can see in the dark.
Yes, I was right. Like Caesar, I came and overcame. Next day my
princess received me with evident anxiety. She had learned my
ballad, and

"The low, the deep, the pleading tone,
With which I sang another's love
Interpreted my own."

The finest images are wrought in marble, and I found the object
of my own agitation, calm and statuesque as Hebe. Even when I
intreated with passionate energy, the large eyes looked down half in
pity, half in wonder, and no trembling chords vibrated in that gentle
heart.

She owned this, and said simply :

" I cannot respond as you would wish ; indeed I never was capable

344 ^^^ Old Man's Darling.

of strong emotion, or perhaps of deep feeling. If increasing regard
is sufficient, then "

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ y^

Then we were married. I wrote a long letter, oh, so full of the
outpouring of one's heart, to the man most interested, Victor B., and
received an immediate reply, containing particular directions as to the
purchase of artificial bait for him in Regent Street, with three words
of congratulation added in pencil. With trepidation I had previously
announced that his lady love, believing perhaps that "death and dis-
tance differ but in name," wearied with hope deferred, and the persis-
tent pleading of her mercenary parents, had married a parvenu.
Victor's answer was like a bolt from the blue, scathing and blinding
in its intensity of reproach and denunciation. The young gentleman
need not have been so severe, for he had taken to himself a wife a
fortnight before Miss L.'s bridal.

And now, after three years, we are at Plymouth — my darling
princess in a wheel-chair, and I looking over the wide waters, waiting
till our ship comes home, watching for the splendid sea-ploughing
Sapphire and her eight hundred passengers, amongst whom none so
tall, so handsome as he, the imperious Victor, who will lend fresh
charm and brightness to our rooms to-night.

A PEASANT HEROINE.*

A LITTLE peasant maiden,
Scarce thirteen summers old.

Yet in her veins there ran the blood
Of saints and heroes bold,

And in the Book of Life her name
Is writ in lines of gold.

'Twas in the dreary winter,

When the snow lay thick and white,
Two children sat beside the hearth

In the flickering firelight ;
While round the lonely house the wind

Went moaning through the night.

Two sturdy peasant children.
Who kept their watch alone,

For the elders to the village
A few miles off had gone —

Sedate, housewifely little Reine,
And seven-year old Antoine.

* Founded on fact.

A Peasant Heroine, 345

They sat and talked together

In happy childish glee,
The boy his curly head at rest

Against his sister's knee,
And Reine told stories while she plied

Her needles busily.

But hark ! What sound comes up the win.l.

From the great plain beneath ?
The children startled to their feet,

And listening held their breath—
And then the two young faces turned

As pale, as pale as death !

" The wolves ! It is the horrid wolves ! "

Reine sprang towards the door,
With trembling hands she drew the bolt

More closely than before :
" Oh, Antoine, pile the logs up high.

And make them blaze yet more ! "

With red glare on the gleaming snow,

Shone out the leaping flame.
But at the door the howhng pack

With frantic clamour came — ■
They shook it with their savage claws —

It trembled in its frame !

The children clung together

In mortal agony.
There was no succour nigh at hand.

No place for them to fly —
A crazy plank between them stood,

And the death that they must die !

" Oh, dear Lord, save my brother ! "

The elder sister prayed :
And then she started to her feet

And felt no more afraid ;
For quick as light a sudden thought

Flashed on the little maid.

The press beside the fire !

If she could reach up there —
There was just room enough for o;ie,

But not an inch to spare !
She seized her brother in her arms

And struggled on a chair.

Outside the beasts were clamouring

With bowlings yet more wild,
Into the dark but safe recess.

She thrust the frightened child ;
She turned the key and 'gainst the bars,

Some heavy logs she piled.

;46 A Peasant Heroine.

'Twas done ! The deed of rescue —

It scarce was safely o'er,
When with a groaning awful crash

Fell down the rotten door —
The Avolves rushed in ! Did angels weep

To see such suffering sore ?

At last the village is astir,

The wolves are all at bay,
Forth from the little house they rushed

And left their senseless prey ;
While after them with gun and spear

Men track their desperate way.

Across the blood-stained threshold

The frantic parents go ;
And then upon the frosty air

Rings out a wail of woe —
As by the little mangled form,

The awful truth they know.

They clasped their other darling,

" But Reine, our Reine,-' they cried —

And then the little sobbing lad
Tells how she made him hide.

And face to face with hideous death,
Stood gallantly outside !

Why linger o'er the story,

So full of woe and pain?
At rest in the Good Shepherd's fold,

Is valiant little Reine, ■

Where never cruel prowling w^olf

Can harm or fright again !

But still throughout the country.

Her name is honoured long,
And the village people chant her praise

In native rhyme and song.
And tell about the quenchless love

That made her heart so strong.

A little peasant maiden,

Yet she so well had striven.
That unto her a glorious crown.

The martyr's crown, was given.
And a place among the deathless ranks

Of God's dear saints in Heaven.

Christian Burke.

( 347 )

THE FIRST LODGER.

" TT seems the only thing we can do, Kate."

■^ A sad-faced elderly woman, speaking in reluctant desponding
tones, looked in the bright handsome face of a half-sister, who was
young enough to have been her daughter,

" Quite so, Jane," answered a brisk, clear voice ; " and nothing
very terrible about it after all ! "

" Oh, my dear, don't say that ! But for this cruel loss your future
might have been so different. But we must try to save our home."

" Don't trouble about my future, Jennie ! " said Kate Walters,
hastily. " I am five-and-twenty, and a sober woman of the world.
Let us write the advertisement. Sit down."

And she playfully pulled Miss Walters into a chair beside her own
at the table, and took up a pen which she dipped in the ink.

" Now then ! what shall we say ? "

" Two ladies having a larger house "

" Oh, Jennie ! " interrupted Kate, " don't you think the shabby-
genteels have used up that little fib ? "

" My dear, what would you say then ? " hopelessly inquired Miss
Walters.

" /should say, ' Two comfortably furnished rooms to let with good
attendance ; gentleman preferred.' "

" Why a gentleman, my child ? " asked the elder, nervously.

" Because he will perhaps have something to take him out early
and keep him out late," said Kate, promptly ; " and ladies sit at
home and ring the bell all day."

" True, my dear. Hadn't we better say it is a lady's house ? "

" I think not ; they wouldn't know we were real ladies, you know,"
explained Kate. " And those people who have seen ' better days ' are
always a nuisance ; don't you remember when we lodged with the
Norrises at Scarborough ? "

" Yes, yes. Write what you please, my dear. It is all very
terrible."

The advertisement was posted, and Kate put many dainty touches
to the drawing-room, and bed-room at the back of it, which were to
be let. One thing Miss Walters was firm about — Kate should never
have anything to say to the lodger ; she and the servant would
manage that. At present the last-named treasure knew nothing of
their plans.

Kate was out when a gentleman called.

" I wish to see the rooms," said a quick business voice.

The maid stared. A small crack of the dining-room door
opened slowly, and Miss Walters whispered :

34^ The First Lodger.

" Show the gentleman the drawing-room floor."

The tasteful rooms pleased the visitor.

" Might do ; what's the rent ? "

" I don't know, sir ! " sulkily answered the servant, who was
brooding over a grievance.

" Call the landlady, then ! " sharply retorted the gentleman, leading
the way down-stairs.

Miss Walters heard him, and received a fresh shock ; but held
open the dining-room door for the stranger, who entered, and looked
steadily at the slight nervous little lady before him. She also
regarded him, and beheld a man of about middle height, with a large
brown beard, and an eye-glass which was evidently a necessary
appendage, and a keen business air.

" May I ask the rent, everything included ? " he inquired quickly.

" Two pounds a week, if you don't think it too much," said the
lady, feeling and looking miserable.

" That will do. I can send in my traps to-night, and come to-
morrow, I suppose ? "

" Oh, yes."

" Your name ? " inquired the gentleman, holding an open note-
book in which to register it.

" Walters — Miss Walters."

And with a bow he was gone.

" Kate, my darling, the rooms are let ! " was that young lady's greeting.

" Capital, Jennie ! Who has taken them ? "

" A gentleman, but " — and here Miss Walters gave a blank look
of apology — " my dear, I quite forgot to ask his name ! "

" You're a very indiscreet person, Jennie I " said the young lady
with a look of astonishment.

However, about eight o'clock some very substantial luggage arrived
in the shape of well-travelled portmanteaus and bags.

" That looks all right, Kate," deprecated Jane.

" Really you will make a first-rate screw of a landlady ! " jeered
Kate. " How do you know these things are not filled with infernal
machines ? I shall have a good look at our lodger to-morrow, and in
the meantime will look at the labels to see what he calls himself."

Miss Walters followed the tall graceful figure nervously into the
dimly-lit hall. Kate gave a little start as she read the first label, and
was silent.

" Is anything wrong ? " pleaded the elder sister, clasping her hands
together.

" Oh, dear no ! " said Kate, coolly. " Capel Drewitt, Esq., is a
most harmless name," and she returned to the dining-room.

Then came the maid, with a tragic air of dignity.

" Can I speak to you, ma'am ? "

" Of course," said Miss Walters a little testily, for it had been a
trying day, and she could not see the bright side yet.

I

The First Lodger. 349

*' Please, ma'am, I wish to leave to-morrow."

" What for ? " asked Miss Walters, helplessly.

" Because, ma'am, I could never live where there was a lodger took !
IVe halways lived in private families."

" Pray go, then ! ' said Kate, drily.

" To-morrow, please, ma'am. I don't mind about my month's
wages."

When she had left the room Miss Walters could not help having
recourse to her pocket-handkerchief.

" It's — it's dreadful Who is to let him in ? "

" My dear Jennie," cried Kate, jumping up and throwing her arm
round the frail little suffering gentlewoman ; " don't bother your head
to-night ! Have your cocoa, and come to bed."

Next day the maid left early, and Kate prepared for work until
the Registry Office provided them with another treasure.

" My dear," said Miss Walters nervously, standing at the top of the
kitchen stairs and speaking to Kate who stood bare-armed and broom
in hand down below, " it is opening the door I am thinking of.
Don't you think I could leave it open "

A peal of laughter from Kate interrupted.

" Oh, Jennie, Jennie ! Down in Devonshire, now, it might do, but
in London ! At all events, put my umbrella out of the hall if "

Here a brisk knock and ring nearly caused Miss Walters to fall
headlong down the stairs, and she almost hoped, though she would
certainly have refused, that Kate would offer to open the door.
However, no such offer was made, and with trembling fingers the
lady unfastened the door. There stood, not the lodger, but an old
lady friend who had come to give a cheering word to the depressed
owner of the house. There was a providence in this visit, for the
lady was able to provide them with a servant, the sister of one of her
own domestics, who was in her house at the moment.

" And she shall be here before that man comes," said the old visitor
in a determined voice, as she marched briskly off.

Consequently Capel Drewitt, Esq. was ushered into possession of
his rooms in most approved fashion, and when asked if " he pleased
to want anything," his reply was such as to give a chance, on its being
repeated, for a really genial smile from Miss Walters.

" He won't never want nothink, ma'am, but his boots and his break-
fast."

" That is a very satisfactory lodger, Jennie," congratulated Kate, in
a tone of dry amusement.

Miss Walters was doubly happy noAv Kate approved, and began,
making a list of breakfast delicacies.

" What time does he want his breakfast, Clara ? " she inquired.

" Nine o'clock, please, ma'am. And wall you have breakfast before
that, please, ma'am ? "

" Half-past eight ; but I shall be down long before," said Kate,

350 The First Lodger.

intruding firmly on the conversation, " Miss Walters will breakfast in
bed."

" But, my dear, now,^^ feebly interposed the mistress of the house.

" Be quiet, Jennie ! " said Kate ; and she was quiet, with a sad little
smile of comfort on her delicate little face.

Kate's piano — moved into the dining-room before the lodger
came — was opened each night. She played as few people play, and
sang touching old songs in a way that brought up tears and memories
unbidden.

What tempted her to that song ?

Miss Walters, busy with happy little calculations in tiny note-books,
heard a tremendous stamp on the floor above, which shook the gas
globes wildly, and caused the little lady to start from her chair.
Kate twisted round on her music stool, and faced her alarmed elder
sister, observing :

" What a noisy lodger ! "

The drawing-room bell rang.

Clara's fleet footsteps were heard ascending. Overhead the lodger
paced hastily, and when the servant entered to inquire his exact
object in ringing the bell, he did not seem to be quite sure wh;it he
wanted.

"You rang, sir ? " she civilly suggested.

" Rang ? Yes, oh, yes. Have you such a thing as — as — as a
lemon in the house ? "

" I'll see, sir."

" Wait, Mary — what's-your-name ? Who was that singing just
now ? "

"Why, Miss Walters' sister, sir."

" Oh, indeed ! "

" I'll see about the lemon, sir," said Clara retiring.

" Hang the lemon ! " muttered the lodger.

In the dining-room, the servant found her mistress expectant.

" Have you such a thing as a lemon, ma'am, Mr. Drewitt says."

" Does he stamp like that for a lemon ? " murmured Kate.

" My dear ! " gravely responded Miss Walters, seeing with disgust
that Clara had raised her muslin apron to conceal a giggle. The
lemon was provided from the sideboard, and there is reason to beheve
that it was either consumed whole that night, or thrown amongst the
cats who made harmony towards morning.

" Good-night, dear Jennie ! " said Kate, bending softly to kiss her
sister after seeing her safely into bed.

" Good-night, my love," said the elder lady, looking anxiously in
the beautiful grey eyes ; " you are — I hope, my dear, you are quite
well to-night ? "

Kate laughed ; her bright careless laugh.

" When was I ever ill, Jennie ? "

" It is not that, child," said Miss Walters, with a smothered sich ;

The First Lodger. 351

*' but you have borne much — your father's daughter should have
had "

"You have managed to spoil my father's daughter, Miss Walters,"
said Kate laughing, " and you are reaping the whirlwind of it."

" Dearest, noblest ! " affectionately murmured the delicate little
lady, and Kate looked sadly back as she said to herself outside the door :

" Poor Jennie ! she thinks I care about the money ! She knows
nothing — shall never know ! "

Kate's room was at the top of the house. It was late when she
went up carrying no light, and she paused on the first landing to
make sure the drawing-room gas was out. The door stood partly open
and all was in darkness ; only the stairs were flooded with bright
moonlight, which showed her beautiful figure in full relief to a pair of
eager puzzled eyes which were watching from the darkened room as
she ascended.

Next day the lodger, his week having expired, asked Clara if he
could see Miss Walters.

" I'll see, sir."

Miss Walters desired the servant to say she was disengaged in the
dining-room. Kate immediately withdrew to the lower regions.

" My little account. Miss Walters," said Mr. Drewitt, entering with
that document in his hand, and laying the amount on the table.

Miss Walters bowed, and expressed a feeble and embarrassed hope
that Mr. Drewitt was comfortable, for a wild fear had seized her that
he might be going to give notice and leave.

" Quite so ! Oh, yes, perfectly ! " replied the gentleman, with such
an air of abstraction that his next remark had an additionally startling
effect.

" I beg pardon — a thousand pardons, in fact," he said rapidly,
fixing and letting fall his eyeglass several times ; " but is your real
name Walters ? "

Good Heavens ! this timid little lady to be suspected of an alias.
What new humiliation was this ? She drew herself up with great
dignity, and said :

" It is, sir ! What reason have you for supposing me to be any one
else ? "

" None ! I must consent to appear like a lunatic." He was gone,
and did not return till late that night. Next day he went out as
usual, but returned about half-an-hour after, let himself in with a
latch-key, and came face to face with Kate on the landing, she having
a large dusting-apron on, and her splendid hair rolled in a white linen
cloth.

There was an ottoman on which Kate angrily cast her turban and
her gloves, and then stood downcast and scarlet beside them and
before her judge.

" At last ! " he exclaimed, seizing fiercely the trembling hands.
*' Why this false name ? "

352 The First Lodger.

The honest grey eyes opened with indignation.

" I have no false name ! You are my half-sister's lodger here. My
mother was Mrs. Walters before she married my father."

" Well, why have you avoided me ? You know you love me ! ''

" How dare you ? " angrily began the girl, but something in the
brave eyes that met hers broke her down, and she sobbed in his
arms.

" Please, Miss Walters, ma'am ! " cried the maid in awe-stricken
whispers, entering her mistress's bed-room, "there's Miss Kate and
the drawing-room floor going on like anythink on the landing ! "

Out rushed Miss Walters in her dressing-gown, and straight to the
scene of action.

" Sir, unhand my sister ! " she cried.

" Oh, Jennie, Jennie ! " half laughed, half cried Kate, who did not
try to be " unhanded," " it's all my fault."

" A gentlewoman ! " gasped Miss Walters, in pale dismay.

" It is all right, indeed it is, dear madam," said the lodger. " Do
let us get into a room and explain."

Which they did, to the natural disappointment of the servant, who
would have liked the explanation to take place on the stairs.

The truths which came to light were simple. Kate Kennedy, Jane
Walters' young half-sister, had met Capel Drewitt five years before, and
they had loved each other. He went to India to make a home before
offering his hand ; in the meantime Kate was left, to her surprise, a
penniless orphan, and in the midst of her sorrow a rumour reached
her, which remained uncontradicted, that Capel Drewitt had married
in India. All this, and the production of certain returned letters,
which Mr. Drewitt had in his possession, showing that he had written
his proposals, and received back his letters owing to Kate's change
of fortune and residence, made the horizon clear and promising at
once.

" My darling, good child ! " cried Miss Walters.

" You see, Jennie," said Kate, in a laughing whisper, " how wise I
was to advertise for a gentleman ! "

" There is a providence in all things — in the midst of our greatest
troubles a special blessing comes," said Miss Walters.

" You mean ' our lodger,' Jennie, don't you ? " suggested Kate
demurely.

Minnie Douglas.

Out of the room, along the corridor, and upstairs, slowly, mechanically,

as a woman in a dream.

THE ARGOSY.

NOVEMBER, 18(^2,

A GUILTY SILENCE.

CHAPTER XLII.

EVE WARRINER.

A^^HEN twelve hours had passed after the posting of the two
* '' letters, Trix began to listen anxiously for the cab that was to
bring Margaret from the station. Or, perhaps, one of them might
first write — either her husband or her sister ; and every time she heard
the postman in the street, her heart gave a little leap, and she tried to
nerve herself in anticipation of the letter which she felt almost sure he
must have for her. So the first day passed away, and the second day,
and the third ; but no cab stopped at Mrs. Clemson's door, neither
did the postman leave any letter for the young wife lying upstairs with
clasped hands and beating heart, and waiting, with a desperate patience
on her white face, for the missive that was not yet written.

When the third day came to an end, and brought her no news, Trix
said to herself, " They have renounced me. They have given me up,
one and all. They will have nothing further to do with me. Well, if
they can live without me, I must try whether I cannot live without them."

All that night she lay awake, crying softly to herself. But just as
the first grey streaks of the winter morning were making themselves
apparent in the sky, she fell into a quiet, dreamless sleep, as soft and
refreshing as that of a child. She awoke about ten o'clock, to find
Mrs. Clemson by her bedside, quietly stirring a cup of tea.

" Well, how are we this morning ? A little better, unless I am
much mistaken. Now, here's a nice cup of tea, just sweetened to
your liking. Try to drink it ; it will do you good."

Trix sat up in bed, and put her arm round the old lady's neck, and
-drew her face close to her own, and kissed her.

" I will eat or drink anything you bring me," she said, " for I want
to get well as soon as possible. And there is something else I want,
and that is, to learn how to make artificial flowers. I want to earn
my own living, be it ever such a poor one."

" If you want to learn how to make artificial flowers," said Mrs.

VOL. LIV. Y

354 ^ Guilty Silence.

Clemson, " Eve shall give you some lessons — that is, when you are
a good deal stronger than you are now. But as to earning your living
by it, that is easier said than done. But it will be time enough to
talk about this in another fortnight. What you have got to do now
is just to eat and drink as much as you can, and not bother your head
about anything."

Not bother her head about anything ! Good homely advice, no
doubt, if she could only have acted on it.

On the seventh day after sending off her first letter, a sudden fit of
impatience came over her, and she wrote to her husband a second
time, but in no yielding mood. She also began a second letter to
her sister ; but after writing half-a-dozen lines, she tore it up and
thrust it into the fire.

" I had a sister Madge once, who loved me better than all the
world beside," she said bitterly to herself. " Now, I have only Mrs.
Bruhn, of Brook Lodge, for a sister, and that makes all the difference.
Not till she has answered my first letter will I write to her again."

Her letter to her husband ran thus : —

" When I wrote to you a week ago, I informed you that my sister,
Mrs. Bruhn, could furnish you with my address. As you have not
thought well to communicate with me since that time, I can only
conclude it to be your wish that henceforth we shall be as strangers to
each other. I am quite content that such should be the case, since
it would appear that you either cannot or will not give me such an
explanation of your conduct as, in my position as your wife, I have a
right to look for at your hands. It may be that your conduct admits
of no explanation. Such is the only construction I can put upon
your silence. In that view of the case, I ask only that we may never
meet again. " And so — farewell.

" B. R."

This letter, as we have already seen, met with a like fate to the
first one. It never reached the hands of Hugh Randolph, and Trix
waited in vain for a reply.

In the breaking away of all the ties of her former life, and in the
loneliness of heart to which she was now condemned, Trix felt her-
self drawn gradually closer to her new friend. Eve Warriner. Eve's
sympathy was so unobtrusive, and 3'et so genuine — for Trix had
given her an outline of her story — that the doctor's young wife must
have been made of far sterner stuff than she was had she not felt
touched and cheered by it. Without knowing anything of Eve's
history, Trix felt instinctively that it must be a sad one ; that her own
sorrows had taught her to open her heart to the sorrows of others ;
and that between herself and the world's afflicted ones there was a
subtle chord of sympathy which brought them into union one with the
other, making her the confidant of the troubles of all with whom she
came in contact. During the worst part of Trix's illness, Eve had

A Guilty Silence. 355

shared with Mrs. Clemson the task of nursing her ; and now that her
strength was coming back from day to day, and the time of nursing
had gone by, Eve still spent many hours in Trix's room, working
busily at her flowers meanwhile, talking or silent, according to the
mood in which the invalid might happen to be. That delicate assimi-
lation of her own mood to that of others was, perhaps, one great
reason why she was liked so well by all who knew her.

" What a good woman Mrs. Clemson must be ! " said Trix one day
to Eve after a long silent pause, during which she had been
thinking deeply. " The goodness of her heart seems to shine out
through every action of her life."

" She is a good woman," answered Eve emphatically, " as no one
has better reasons than myself for knowing. Had it not been for her,
I should have been lying at this moment in a nameless grave, the
victim of my own rash act."

" You ! " exclaimed Trix in astonishment.

" I," answered Eve calmly. Her nimble fingers ceased their move-
ments for a minute or two. She sat in silence, gazing into vacancy.
Then breaking up her reverie with a sigh, she turned a smiling face
on Trix. " It does me good now and then to talk about myself," she
said ; " it seems to relieve the fulness that I sometimes feel just here,"
and she pressed her hand to her heart ; " so I now propose to tell you
the story of a naughty girl.

" My father was, and is, a country parson," began Eve, " and I am
an only child. I lived a very happy life at the little parsonage till I
was eighteen years old, and had not a care, a hope, or an ambi-
tion, beyond the moss-grown walls of its garden. We were not very
rich, but we had enough for our simple wants, and something over for
the poor. After a time, some one came and told me that he loved
me, and I thought that I loved him in return ; but it was liking, not
love, that I felt for him, as I afterwards discovered to my bitter cost.
He pressed me to become his wife, and I consented. My father made
no difficulty from the first. The wedding-day was fixed, and all arrange-
ments made, when I went to spend the last fortnight of my unmar-
ried life at the house of an aunt, who lived thirty miles away in
another county. What followed is not difficult to guess. While at
my aunt's, I met with a second some one whom I could and did love,
and who professed to love me. Even at this distance of time I can-
not bear to dwell on the details of the sweet, hateful story. It is
enough to say that his promises made me forget everything else. We
were quietly married one morning at a little church three miles away
across the fields. He brought an elderly friend who gave me away,
and who passed for my uncle. That night I left my aunt's house for
ever, and joined my husband at the nearest railway station. I wrote
to my father, I wrote to the man I had so cruelly jilted. I told both
of them what I had done, and prayed their forgiveness.

" My husband and I went to a little town in thei south of France

Y 2

356 A Guilty Silence.

and then followed six happy, happy months. My husband was fond
of me in his own careless indifferent fashion, and that was all I
asked. He was one of the most changeable of mortals ; and I
suppose that, in time, his love for me would have burnt itself out,
and my dream of happiness would have come to an end that way.
The waking, however, came after a different fashion. He had gone
away with a French friend for a few days' fishing. While he was
from home, a letter from England came .through the post to his
address ; it was marked imi?iediate and importafit^ and the words were
underlined. I was utterly at a loss where to find my husband ; he
never made me the confidant of his movements whenever he went
from home on any of his sporting excursions. Thinking that there
might perhaps be something in the letter that I could reply to in his
absence, and that, in any case, no harm could result, I opened it.
It proved to be from my husband's man of business, informing him
that the younger of his two children was dead, and that his wife
being unacquainted with his address, had applied to him — the lawyer —
to inform her husband of the fact. ' Her husband ! then what is he
to me, and what am I to him ? ' was the first question I asked myself.
When Ralph came back, which he did next day, it was the first
question I put to him. He took the whole matter very coolly, as he
did everything in life.

" ' You are rightly served,' he said, ' for opening a letter that did
not belong to you.'

" I think the next half-hour was the bitterest of my life. I got the
whole story from him by dint of questioning, for he would not tell
me anything of his own accord. He had been married ten years
when I first knew him, but had not lived with his wife for more than
half that time. He was a man who would let nothing stand in the
way of his own ends. Rather than lose me — his whim for the time
being — he chose to commit bigamy. This he acknowledged with
the utmost frankness, in answer to my questions, saying, ' If ever I
return to England, dear child, you can have me arrested for bigamy,
and take your revenge out of me that way.' But he knew very well
that I should do nothing of the kind. Well, to shorten a long story,
it will be sufficient to say, that on the evening of that same day I left
him. Now that I knew my position in relation to him, I would not
stay another hour. He tried, in his languid far niente way, to induce
me not to leave him ; but I have sometimes thought since that he
was rather pleased than otherwise, to be so easily rid of a toy of
which he had already begun to tire. Be that as it may, I found
myself in London three days later, and in all the great city there was
not a soul that I knew. By this time my money was nearly ex-
hausted, but in my travelling case I found a purse containing twenty
sovereigns, which Ralph had put there unknown to me. I went to
a quiet and inexpensive hotel, and wrote to my father and my aunt ;
but my aunt had died while I was abroad, and my father refused to

A Guilty Silence. <357

even answer my letters. Other relatives in the world I had none.
Again and again I wrote to my father, but all to no purpose. His
stern sense of right and wrong would not allow him to pardon in one
of his own kin what he would have been one of the first to condone
in the case of a stranger. Week by week my little store of money
dwindled to a smaller sum, but I was utterly apathetic in this and
every other matter ; utterly regardless as to what should become of
me. At length the day came when I was called upon to change my
last shilling. I shook hands with the landlady of the hotel, and bade
her farewell, telling her that my two boxes would be sent for ; then
putting on my bonnet and shawl, I wandered out into the streets.
It was in the spring of the year; the days were warm and dry, but
the nights were still keen and frosty. What happened to me during
the next four or five days I can scarcely remember. I walked about
the streets all day, and passed my nights on a bench in one of the
parks. I lived on bread and water while my few coppers lasted, but
when my last penny was gone, water alone was all I had. This could
not last long, so, on the evening of the second day that I had been
without food, and when my hunger had • become almost unbearable,
instead of going to the park, I made my way down tow^ards the river.
After a time I found myself crouched in a dim corner near one of the
bridges, but have no recollection of how I got there. My fixed
determination was to end everything that night by a leap into the
cold, dark flood, in whose swirl and lap and wash there was a whisper
of oblivion — a murmur of the sleep that knows no waking.

" By-and-by, when one of the great clocks near at hand had told
eleven, and one by one the busy noises of the day were dying out, I
crawled cut of my lair, and making my way up one or two narrow
deserted streets, I found myself in a little while on the bridge itself.
The leap from its parapet, so I calculated, would deaden sensation
before I should touch the water, and make death easier. I began to
pace the bridge, thinking of my past life as I did so ; but it was
chiefly the old time at home, when I was a careless happy girl, that
my thoughts ran on, and of the stern grey-haired man living out his
lonely life at the little parsonage among the hills. Had all the world
been mine at that moment, I would gladly have given it for one kiss
from his lips and one word of forgiveness. At length the half-hour
was chimed by the same clock that I had heard before. ' One short
fifteen minutes more, and then I shall cease to suffer,' I said to myself.
' When the quarter before midnight chimes, I will hesitate no
longer.'

"As it seemed to me, the words had hardly gone from my lips,
when the slow musical chimes broke the quiet of the great bridge yet
once again, and I felt that my time had come. I looked around.
The night was very dark, and the far-apart lamps seemed to struggle
ineffectually against the blackness. For the moment I seemed to be
utterly alone. No sound of approaching footsteps broke the stillness.

358 A Guilty Silence.

I took off my bonnet and laid it on the parapet ; I bound up my
hair, and tied my shawl firmly round my waist. My foot was on the
topmost ledge, and in another second I should have been over, when
I felt my gown clutched at from behind, and a woman's voice said,
' What are you doing here at this time of night ? Come down, or I
will call the police.' I stepped down on to the pavement, and tried
to free myself from her grasp, but she held gie fast. ' Let me go,' I
said. ' You mind your business, and leave me to mind mine.' —
' This is my business, or at least I shall make it so,' said the woman
firmly. ' Come quietly with me, or I shall put you into the hands of
the police.' She placed my hand within her arm, and drew me off
the bridge. ' Rash girl ! Do you know what it is that you were
about to do ? ' she said when we had got into the streets. ' Yes, I
was about to put an end to my troubles,' I said sulkily ; ' and but for
you they would have been all over by this time.' — Your earthly
troubles would have been over; but the trouble that never endeth,
the trouble that lasts through eternity, might perhaps have begun.
Where is your home, and who are your parents ? ' — ' I have neither,'
I answered. — ' For to-night you shall go with me to my home. In
the morning we will talk over your affairs, and see what had best be
done for you.' She brought me home to this house, and here I have
been ever since."

There were tears in Trix's eyes as Eve Warriner finished her
narrative.

" My troubles seem heavy to bear," she said ; " but how much
heavier must yours have been ! How long have you lived with Mrs.
Clemson ? "

" Nearly two years, and during that time I have ' healed me of my
wounds.' The scars remain, and always will do, but the old bitter
smart has died out, and again it seems a pleasant thing to live."

" But still your life must be a very lonely one," urged Trix. " You
are so superior in every way to those "

Eve held up her hand.

" Don't talk in that strain, please," she said. " In what way are
either you or I superior to Mrs. Clemson ? We may be more highly
educated, our intellectual needs may be greater ; but her noble heart,
so full of true Christian charity, redeems — nay, far more than redeems
— every other deficiency."

" I am rightly rebuked," said Trix. *' Mrs. Clemson has a heart of
gold. Such as she make the salt of the earth."

" Your occasion for saying so would be still greater if you knew as
much as I know of her private life, and of the good she does by
stealth."

" And have you quite forgotten the past ? " asked Trix. " Does it
never rise unbidden in your memory like a ghost ? "

" Often and often," answered Eve. " No, the past will not let itself be
forgotten. It comes like an importunate beggar knocking at the gates of

A Guilty Silence. ■ 359

Memory. But I will not give way to it more than I can possibly
help. I find that the best remedy for keeping my thoughts from
wandering far afield is to keep my fingers well employed."

" Your remedy shall be mine," said Trix, " as soon as ever I shall
have gained a little more strength."

" This has been a happy month for me," said Eve smilingly. " It
has given me a friend " — here she bent over, and kissed Trix fondly ;
" and it has given me back the love of my father."

" Your father ! Have you seen him ? " said Trix eagerly.

" I have," answered Eve. " I was down at home — at the dear old
parsonage — when you first came here. Yes, my father has forgiven
me ; and the full meaning of the words can be known to those alone
who have sinned as I have sinned. I know that his love has been
mine from the first, that his heart has never been estranged from me ;
and now I feel that not contentment merely, but happiness, may again
be mine."

" Your words are like medicine to my soul," said Trix. " I feel
that even in my case there may be hope."

" Hope on, hope ever," answered Eve earnestly. " Let that be your
motto. I can see the truth of it now, although there was a time when
such w^ords would have seemed to me like so many unmeaning sounds.
But I have not yet told you to what especial means I owe my recon-
ciliation with my father. I owe it to the kind offices of the man to
whom I was once engaged to be married — of him whom I so cruelly
jilted. By some means it came to his knowledge that I had left my
husband. Once, when I was at my wretchedest, he saw me in the
middle of a London crowd ; but before he could reach me I had dis-
appeared. I saw him, and fled from him as though he were one who
had sworn to take my life. But he would not lose me thus easily.
He could not look for me himself, but he paid others to do so for
him, — men accustomed to such tasks. I was found at last, and he
(I will not mention his name) came to see me. He was not long in
discovering that the great unhappiness of my life arose from my father's
refusal to be reconciled to me. He undertook to bring us together
again, and he succeeded. The utmost concession that he could
induce papa to make was granting me permission to wTite to him.
But he was not satisfied with that. He took me down to the
parsonage, and opening the door of the room in which papa was
sitting alone, busy with his next Sunday's sermon, he pushed me in, and
shut us up together. It was a bold ruse, but it was a successful one.
Poor papa capitulated, and in two minutes was calling me by the old
pet name that I knew myself by before I knew that I had any other."
" And yet you never really loved this true-hearted man ? " said
Trix.

" No, I never really loved him," answered Eve, " except as I might
love a brother, or a very dear friend. And he — well, I have good
reason to know that he has long got over his youthful passion for me,

360 A Guilty Silence,

and is happy in other ties. To me he has been true-hearted in the
noblest sense of the word, returning good for evil, and winning back
a father's love when I thought I had lost it for ever. A good and
noble man in every way is Hugh Randolph."

" Who ? " gasped Trix, while a death-like pallor overspread her face.
" I did not hear the name aright."

" Hugh Randolph is the name. I did not intend to mention it
even to you, but it slipped off my tongue before I was aware. By
profession he is a surgeon, and lives at Helsingham, a little town over
a hundred miles from here."

" Then you are the veiled woman whom I saw him with at King's
Cross a month ago. He and you went away together by train."

" We did. It will be just a month ago to-morrow since he took me
back to my father. But how strangely you look at me ! What do
you know of Dr. Randolph ? Are you a relative of his ? "

" Only his wife," murmured Trix almost inaudibly.

CHAPTER XLHI.

FOUND.

To Hugh Randolph in his deserted home one dreary day passed
after another without bringing him any tidings of his missing wife.
Both for him and to Mrs. Bruhn this was a period of utter
wretchedness. The inactivity to which they were condemned, the
waiting for tidings that never came, lent an additional pang to
what they might otherwise have felt. A day never passed without
either Hugh walking up to Brook Lodge, or Margaret going down to
the doctor's house. Mr. Bruhn was full of the warmest and most
generous sympathy, and placed himself and his purse unreservedly at
Hugh's command. Had assistance, either personal or pecuniary,
been of any avail in the matter, Mr. Bruhn would have shrunk from
no sacrifice however great.

There was another member of the family, Mr. Davenant, to wit. On
the first evening after hearing of the disappearance of Trix, he broke
down suddenly while playing in the overture to the burlesque, and was
obliged to leave the theatre. Next day, he sent in his resignation,
and at the end of the week he set out for Helsingham, where he
was cordially welcomed by Mr. Bruhn. Under other circumstances,
to have been so welcomed, and in such a house, would have made the
old rover happy for ever ; but his youngest daughter was gone, no
one knew whither, and he had never felt till now how closely the
fibres of his heart had twined themselves around her. He derived
very little pleasure from his new clothes, or even from the choice
cigars of which he was now at liberty to smoke as many as he pleased.
Day by day he seemed to grow more silent and melancholy, and went
mooning about the little town, heedless of everything and everybody ;

A Guilty Silence. 361

haunting the telegraph office hour after hour, being possessed by a
vague half-formed idea that it must of necessity be the place to which
some tidings of his lost darling must first come.

The scheme devised by Charlotte Heme for rendering the breach
between Hugh Randolph and his wife an irreparable one, had, so far,
proved entirely successful. The only two letters written by Trix had
passed into her hands and been destroyed, and any others that might
be sent would probably meet with a similar fate. If Trix relied on
letter-writing alone as a means of bringing about a reconciliation with
her husband, the foundation on which she built her hopes was a poor
one indeed. In any case, she, Charlotte, was determined to keep
the two apart so long as it lay in her power to do so. The chapter
of accidents might, perhaps, end in favour of her scheme. Events
might so fall out as to preclude her hated rival from ever again
seeking the shelter of her husband's roof. Every day that Trix
remained away was one more point added in Charlotte's favour, and
lessened the chance of the difference between husband and wife ever
working itself out to a happy ending.

Charlotte found that she had little power over Hugh, as in the old
time before his marriage, to charm away his melancholy, or lighten
the evening hours when he came home, tired and dull, after a hard day's
work. He was wounded too deeply for any simple touch of hers to
be of avail. Still, her unspoken sympathy with him in his trouble,
showing itself as it did in many different ways, was not without its
effect upon his mind, although he himself might be hardly conscious
of it. " Any news to-day, Hugh ? " she would ask of him every
evening when he came home.

" None whatever, Charlotte," he would answer, well knowing what
she meant. As he spoke he could see the little hopeful smile with
which she had awaited his answer fade off her face. She would sigh
gently, her beautiful eyes would dim with tears, and a soft cloud of
melancholy would settle round her ; and Hugh would feel himself
drawn nearer to her than he had ever been in his life before. Then,
her deft, noiseless way of going about her household duties, which,
now that Trix was no longer here, she had resumed, and even the
low, monotonous tones of her voice, had a soothing effect upon his
overstrained nerves.

But Hugh's misery was not to last for ever. It came to a sudden
ending, and in this wise. One morning, several days after Charlotte's
adventure in the garden, he was much later than usual at breakfast,
having been called away from home at an early hour. When he
entered the room, Charlotte was not there, having been specially sent
for half an hour ago by Mrs. Sutton. But his letters were there, and
he pounced on them at once ; for, notwithstanding the time that had
passed since Trix's leaving home, he was not able to rid himself
of the hope that she would some day write to him. His letters
this morning had been duly examined by Tib, and passed without

362 A Guilty Silence,

suspicion. Tib declared, and truly, that there was no letter addressed
in the peculiar hand which she had been taught to detect and pick
out ; but there was one in another hand — a letter from Eve Warriner
— that at once scattered Charlotte's edifice to the winds.

Hugh recognised the writing in a moment, but he put the letter on
one side for a time, and did not open it till he had nearly finished
breakfast, and then only with that amount of languid interest, which
was all that he now seemed to have at command, even for matters
that had at one time appeared to him of the greatest moment. But
when his eye took in the contents of the note, he felt as if his senses
had suddenly deserted him. The note ran thus : —

" Dear Mr. Randolph, — Your wife is here, under this roof, and has
been here since the evening when you and I went down to Etwold
together. I did not discover the identity of Mrs. Randolph with your
wife till a few minutes ago, so could not write earlier. She has been
very ill, but is better now. She has been the victim of a most un-
fortunate error ; but it will be impossible for you to judge her other-
wise than lovingly when you shall have heard all particulars. Come
without a moment's delay. Mrs. Randolph herself has written to you
twice, but, as you have not in any way noticed her letters, she lives in
dread of she knows not what. Again I say. Come !

" Yours,

"Eve W."

" Thank Heaven ! I have found her at last ! " exclaimed Hugh,
when he had read the letter a second time, and had made sure that
his eyes were not deceiving him. And then, strong man though he
was, a mist of tears dimmed his eyes for a little while, and all his
heart was melted within him. " Eve says that my darling wrote
twice, but no letter from her has ever been received by me. That
will be a matter to inquire into when I come back." He looked at
his watch, and found that he had just a couple of hours to spare
before the departure of the next London train. His first act was to
write and send a line to Mrs. Bruhn, telling her whither he was about
to go, and on what errand. Then he hurried round to a few of his
most important patients, and arranged with the same good friend that
had acted for him previously to look after the remainder during his
absence. Then back home, where he hastily packed a small travelling
valise, by which time it was necessary to set out for the station. As
he was going down the steps, he bethought himself of Charlotte.
Turning for a moment to the servant, he said, " Tell Miss Charlotte,
when she comes in, that I have had good news, and am off to London.
Tell her also that I hope to be back sometime to-morrow, but not
alone." Then he went.

Charlotte came back in about an hour, and Hugh's message was at
once repeated to her word for word. The blind girl's face blanched
to a still more deathly whiteness as her ears drank in the message,

A Guilty Silence, 363

while an expression of such fiendish malignity cramped her features
for a moment, as caused the girl who had been speaking to her to
shrink from her side as though she had caught a glimpse of some foul
and hideous witch. Charlotte shivered from head to foot, then drew
herself up proudly, and went slowly upstairs to her own room.

Hugh had many strange questions to ponder in his mind as he was
borne swiftly Londonwards. But, ponder them as he might, no solu-
tion of them was possible to him till the end of his journey should be
reached. Could he have had his own way, he would have transformed
the sorry hack, behind which he was driven through the London
streets, into a winged Pegasus that should have borne him swiftly
through the air to the spot where his loved one was awaiting him.

Yes, she was awaiting him with a heart that beat as high and
anxiously as his own. She heard the cab stop, she heard the door
opened, she heard his footstep on the stairs, and next moment they
were clasped heart to heart, and all the wretched time just ended
seemed like an evil dream that is only remembered to be smiled at in
the bright gladness of morning.

" Why did you not trust me, dear ? " whispered Trix to her husband,
as they sat together hand in hand, she with her head resting on his
shoulder, in the grey twilight of the winter afternoon. " If you had
only confided in me, all this misery would have been saved to both
of us."

" It would," answered Hugh contritely. And then he kissed his
wife again, by way of showing how penitent he was. " I was mad —
wrong — foolish. I wished you never to know that you were not my
first love — that I had ever cared for another than yourself. I had a
ridiculous idea in my head — how ridiculous I now for the first time
really see — that if you should ever learn that I had promised myself
in marriage long before I knew you ; that I had whispered words of
love in other ears, as I have since whispered them in yours — I should
stand less high in your regards, and that you would set less value on
my affection should you ever learn that it was a second-hand article
that had at one time been the property of some one else."
" You foolish old Hugh ! How little you knew me ! "
" I measured you after my own standard. I felt that it would be
painful to me to know that you had ever loved before ; and, reversing
the case, I feared the effect of such knowledge on yourself. I wanted
your heart to be so entirely my own, that I would not willingly allow
the faintest shadow of any possible estrangement to come between us.
We shall know each other better for the future," said Hugh.

" Yes, in that we shall be gainers by our lesson. Come what may,
I can never, never doubt you again, dear. Eve Warriner has told me
her story. She has told me of your untiring efforts to seek her out,
and how, when you had found her, you could not rest content till you
had brought about a reconciliation between her and her father. All
the hardness, all the bitterness that was turning my heart to gall

364 A Guilty Silence.

melted away for ever when she accidentally let slip the name of the
man who had not merely forgiven her the great wrong she had done
him, but had covered his forgiveness with an action so beautiful.
But why did you not answer my letters ? I wrote to you twice, but
when there came no reply, not even a line to say that you would
never forgive me, nor receive me back as your wife, then I felt that I
was indeed forgotten, and should have been glad to die, and trouble
no one any more."

" No letter from you ever reached me," answered Hugh. " On
that point you may rest assured, otherwise you would have seen me
here long ago. It almost seems to me as if some treachery has been
at work, trying to keep us asunder. But that must be a matter for
after inquiry."

Trix then went on to tell her husband by what strange accident it
fell out she had come to be an inmate of Mrs. Clemson's house.
How Mrs. Clemson, having gone to the station to see Eve Warriner
and Dr. Randolph off by train on their way to Etwold, had found
Dr. Randolph's wife in a fainting fit, and had brought her home
without knowing who she was. Then she went on to tell Hugh
of her illness, and how she had been nursed and tended by Mrs.
Clemson and Eve as though she had been a dear relative of both.

" God bless them for it ! " said Hugh fervently, as Trix laid a
happy, tearful face on her husband's breast. *' Such actions seem to
bring heaven nearer to earth, and make this world a brighter place to
live in."

Mrs. Clemson's pleasant little parlour had never held four happier
people than it held that evening. They sat up till the small hours of
the morning, for they had a thousand things to say, and they all
seemed as if they had known each other for fifty years. At noon
next day, Dr. Randolph and his wife set out for Helsingham. Before
their departure, Hugh settled the pecuniary part of his obligation to
Mrs. Clemson, but the debt of gratitude that was owing to her he felt
could never be repaid. His friendship was hers through life ; and
he did not leave till he had wrung from the old lady a promise to
visit himself and his wife at Helsingham in the course of the coming
spring.

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE GREEN BOTTLE ON THE TOP SHELF.

Dr. Randolph had telegraphed the time of his arrival, and Mr. and
Mrs. Bruhn and Mr. Davenant were all on the platform of the
Helsingham station when he and Trix alighted from the train. That
the meeting was a very happy one need hardly be said. Mr. Bruhn's
carriage was in waiting, and they were all driven to Brook Lodge,
where they found Mrs. Sutton and Miss Easterbrook awaiting their

A Giiilty Silence. 365

arrival. Charlotte Heme had also been invited, but had pleaded
illness as an excuse for staying at home. Both to Mrs. Sutton and
Miss Easterbrook the fact that Trix had left her home for some
unexplained reason was well known ; and not only to them, but to
Mr. and Mrs. Bruhn and Mr. Uavenant a full explanation was due of
what still seemed so unaccountable. That explanation was given by
Hugh Randolph immediately on the arrival of the party at Brook
Lodge. He would have taken the blame of what had happened
entirely on his own shoulders, if Trix would have allowed him to do
so. But when he had made his statement, she made hers, and left
her hearers to apportion the censure as they might think best. Into
those explanations it is not needful that we should enter here. What
the tenor of them would be, the reader will readily surmise. Fortu-
nately, the fact that Mrs. Randolph had left home without the
knowledge or consent of her husband had been carefully concealed
from even the servants of her own house. Hugh's flurried inquiries
for her when he first missed her on his return from Etwold might
possibly have raised some suspicion in their minds as to the real facts
of the case ; but it came afterwards to be understood among the
household that Mrs. Randolph had been suddenly called away to
attend on a sick relative, and although there might be room for
surmise, there was none for downright scandal.

Thus it fell out that, beyond the little party assembled that evening
-at Brook Lodge, there were only two people in all Helsingham who
really knew that Mrs. Randolph had run away from home. One of
those two was Charlotte Heme, and she might be thoroughly trusted,
as being one of the family. The other was Mr. Dawkins, the super-
intendent of police, and in his memory the knowledge of Trix's little
escapade would be locked up, as in a strong box impenetrable to
every one but himself.

A pleasant little dinner, and a pleasant evening afterwards ; an
early break-up, for Trix was still far from strong ; and then Mr. and
Mrs. Randolph were driven home in Mr. Bruhn's brougham.

" I am sorry Charlotte was not at Brook Lodge this evening," said
Hugh to Trix as they were going along. " She sent word that she
was unwell ; but that was probably a mere excuse to avoid going into
company. You know as well as I do what a strange, shy creature
she is. I must ascertain at once on reaching home whether there is
anything really the matter with her."

Charlotte Heme's presence in the house was the only shadow that
lay upon Trix's heart as she came back home with her husband. It
was a shadow that lay dark and chill, a shadow that the sunshine of
her husband's love could dispel only for a time. The moment she
was out of his presence, it was there again, brooding over her like a
dark-winged bird from which there was no escape. She had escaped
it for a time by being away ; but to-night she felt the old influence
creeping over her again, and chilling her to the heart as she drew

366 A Guilty Silence,

near home ; and when Hugh spoke to her about Charlotte, she had
no words in which to answer him.

Hugh had sent a message from the station, so that the arrival of
himself and Mrs. Randolph was not unexpected at home. While
Trix was upstairs taking off her things, he rang for the parlour-maid.

That matter of the missing letters lay heavily on his mind, and he
could not rest till he had done his best to fathom it.

" Whose duty has it been of late," he asked the girl, " to take the
post letters out of the box every morning, and lay them on the table
ready for me ? "

" Since Mrs. Randolph went away, the box has always been opened
by Tib, and the letters taken by her to Miss Charlotte."

" That was done by Miss Charlotte's instructions, I suppose ? "

"Yes, sir."

" If Tib is in Miss Charlotte's room, tell her that I want to speak
to her. If she has gone home, let her be sent for without delay."

" I never liked having that girl about the house," soliloquised Hugh,
while Tib was being sent for. " There is something of the slyness
and cunning of a bad old woman about her ; and had not Charlotte's
partiality for her been so evident, I should have sent her packing
long ago."

Tib came panting in a few minutes later, having evidently run all
the way from home. She stood in great awe of Dr. Randolph, having
an instinctive notion that she was by no means a favourite with him.
Hugh's first question told her what she most dreaded to hear, that
the stern young doctor had a suspicion that his letters had been
tampered with. To do Tib justice, she did all that lay in her power
to screen both her mistress and herself, and would probably have
been quite willing to take the entire blame on to her own shoulders,
had there been any possibility of keeping Charlotte out of the trans-
action. But Hugh's cross-examination was too searching to allow of
her escaping without telling the entire truth. Little by little, the facts
of the case, as already known to the reader, were elicited from her
reluctant lips. Tib's knowledge of the matter ended with the verifi-
cation of the two letters addressed in that particular handwriting
which she had been told by Charlotte to identify. For what reason
Charlotte wanted those two particular letters picking out from the
rest, and whether, after being so identified, they were handed over by
her to Hugh, or were kept back for some purpose of her own, were
points on which Tib was in utter ignorance.

"You say that Miss Charlotte showed you a certain envelope
addressed to me," said Hugh; "and that the two letters afterwards
pointed out by you were in a similar writing. Where is that
envelope ? "

" Locked up in a drawer in Miss Charlotte's room," answered Tib.

" If I were to show you another envelope in the same writing, do
you think that you could recognise it ? "

A Guilty Silence, 367

" Yes, sir ; I am sure I could," answered Tib readily, who, now
that the worst had been wrung from her, determined to make her case
as good as possible by sticking to the truth in minor details.

Hugh opened his writing-desk, and taking out of it a dozen enve-
lopes addressed to him by different people, only one of which was in
Trix's writing, he spread the lot before Tib, and told her to look at
them and tell him whether any of them were in a writing similar to
that of the two letters identified by her for Charlotte. Tib ran her
eye over the envelopes, and, without a moment's hesitation, picked
out the one written by Trix.

" This one," she said, " is the same as the two letters, and as the
envelope locked up in Miss Charlotte's drawer."-

There was nothing more to be got out of Tib. With a severe
reprimand, and a caution not to speak to any one of what had just
passed between them, Hugh dismissed the girl till morning. His next
duty, and it was a painful one, was to see Charlotte, and demand
from her such an explanation as seemed to him necessitated by the
circumstances of the case. During the past half-hour, an abyss seemed
to have opened at his feet, into which he was afraid to look. To a
man of a frank, honourable, and unsuspicious nature, such as was
Hugh Randolph, life can have few bitterer discoveries than that of
domestic treachery, of systematic deceit, on the part of those we love
and hold in supremest confidence. The foundations on which the
soul has reared its earthly dwelling are shaken, and all around us the
ground trembles under our feet.

But infirmity of purpose was not one of Hugh Randolph's weak-
nesses. A few minutes given to deep and painful thought, and then
he went upstairs in search of Charlotte, who had not been seen by
any one out of her own rooms since the forenoon of the previous day.

She had understood but too clearly the message left her by Hugh.
She knew that, in spite of all her patient scheming, her house of cards
had tumbled to the ground, and that it could never again be rebuilt
by her. By what means Hugh had discovered the whereabouts of
his lost wife, she was utterly at a loss to imagine. She sent for Tib,
and questioned her as to the possibility of any letter in that particular
writing which she had been told to pick out having passed her that
morning without detection. But Tib stoutly denied that such could
have been the case, and Charlotte was thrown back upon the merest
conjecture as to how Hugh could have come by his information.
The question was, how much or how little did he know ? Did he
know anything of the missing letters, and of Charlotte's share in that
nefarious piece of work ? He could hardly have known anything of
it when he left home, or he would not have left her a message that he
had heard good news. But what might he hot learn while he was
away ? In any case, she had no remedy but to await his return with
what patience was possible to her. She would not have long to wait.
The best and the worst would soon be known to her. Her hated

368 A Guilty Silence.

rival was coming back — so much she knew already from .he message
sent her from Brook Lodge — coming back to be reinstated in all the
rights and honours due to her position as the wife of Hugh Randolph ;
while she, Charlotte, would sink again into the mere nonentity that
she had been between the date of Trix's marriage and that of her
leaving home. Charlotte's heart was very bitter within her as she
thought of these things, and she awaited the coming of Hugh with a
sort of dogged patience, eager and yet dreading to know the result of
his journey to London.

At length she heard his footsteps coming up the higher flight of
stairs that led to her room, and her heart began to beat tumultuously.

" Are you here, Charlotte ? " he asked, as he opened the door, for
the room was unlighted.

" Yes, Hugh, I am here," she answered plaintively, out of the
darkness.

" I have something to say to you, Charlotte. But ring for lights,
please. The place is as dark as a tomb."

" Darkness and light are both as one to poor me," she answered as
she rang the bell.

She knew at once, from the cold constrained tones of Hugh's voice,
that he was displeased with her about something. What that some-
thing was she needed no prophet to tell her, and she nerved her soul
for the coming encounter. Presently a lighted lamp was brought in ;
then the door was shut, and they were left to themselves.

" Charlotte," began Hugh, in a voice that was very grave, and not
untouched with sadness, " you and I have lived under the same roof
for a long time ; we have been as brother and sister to each other for
many years. One of the dearest objects of my life has been to soften,
as far as in me lay, the terrible affliction under which you are a
sufferer ; while, on the other hand, I have always had the most implicit
faith in you, and would have trusted my reputation, my honour, my
life itself into your care, feeling confident that you would have guarded
them as religiously as if they had been your own."

" And your confidence would have been fully justified by the event,"
answered Charlotte, with bitter pride.

" To-night, however, I have heard something that has shattered my
faith in you for ever," went on Hugh, without heeding the interruption.
" Unless — unless, indeed, there are some facts still in the background
w4th which I have not been made acquainted, and which, when
brought forward by you, will throw an altogether different light on a
transaction which, as it stands at present, certainly demands some
explanation at your hands. Before I go on any further, however, let
me earnestly entreat that you will answer the few questions I shall
have to put to you truthfully and without prevarication. If you
have done me any WTong, own to it at once. Do not let me have the
added ignominy of knowing that you are trying to shelter yourself
under a lie."

A Guilty Silence, 369

" Your words are very severe, Cousin Hugh," said Charlotte mourn-
fully ; " but ask me what you will. I swear to tell you nothing but
the truth."

" That is all I ask," said Hugh. He sat silently for a few moments,
playing absently with his watchguard, as if at a loss how to begin what
he wanted to say. The lamp was between them, and Charlotte sat
opposite to him, except for her breathing, as motionless as a statue,
and almost as pale. Her beautiful intense eyes were fixed on vacancy :
in that dazzling light she was as one stone-blind, seeing nothing, unless
it was some inner vision of things known to herself alone.

" During the time my wife was from home," began Hugh at last,
"all post letters that came to my address passed through your hands
before they were allowed to reach me ? "

" They did."

" The girl Tib was instructed by you to take all letters out of the
box immediately after they had been left by the postman, and give
them at once into your hands ? "

" She was."

" She was further instructed by you to examine the directions of
each batch of letters, and pick out any that might be written in one
particular hand which she had been taught to detect ? "

" She was."

" You have in your possession an envelope addressed to me. The
letters which the girl was instructed to pick out were those which she
judged to be in the same writing as that of the envelope ? "

" They were."

" By whom was the address on that envelope written ? "

" By your wife."

" How many letters were pointed out to you by the girl as being
written by the same person as the envelope was addressed by ? "

" Two."

" What became of those letters ? "

" I burnt them."

" You read them, or, rather, caused them to be read to you, and
then burnt them ? "

" They were burnt without being opened. Not a single word of
their contents became known to me."

" But what possible motive could you have for such an extraordinary
course of action ? "

" I had my private reasons."

" No doubt. But be good enough to explain to me what those
reasons were."

" Your wife had left her home — left it without your knowledge —
had gone you knew not whither. I was wishful that she should not
come back. I wanted to break the link of communication between
you and her. I wanted her to be lost to you for ever."

" But why did you wish that my wife should be lost to me for ever ? "

VOL. LIV. Z

370 A Guilty Silence.

" Because I hate her."

" You — hate — my — \^dfe ! "

" I — hate — your — wife. I have hated her from the moment I first
heard her name. I shall hate her to the last moment of my life ! "

" You must be a fiend in human shape ! What have I done to
deserve this at your hands ? "

" What have you done, Cousin Hugh ? Ah, me ! You have been
like the dearest and best of brothers. For your sake I would go
through fire and water ; I would give my life to save you from
injury."

" And yet you have done your best to work me an irreparable
injury — one that would have wrecked my happiness for life."

" It may seem so to you now," said Charlotte, with a bitter smile.
" Time will teach you to think differently. In years to come, you will
find that it is not within the power of any pretty face either to make
or mar your happiness."

" You must allow me to be the best judge of my own happiness.
That is a question which I am not disposed to argue either with you
or any one else. All that I can deal with in the present case is the
simple fact that, for some reason best known to yourself, you dislike
my wife — ' hate her ' was the term used by you — and that, in pur-
suance of the ill-feeling with which you regard her, you have done
your best to turn an accidental separation into a permanent one, and
to drive her from her home for ever. A strange mode, truly, of
showing your regard for me ! I will not press you further for your
reasons for what you have done. I don't care to know them. To
analyse the motives that could have tempted you to an action so
detestable, would be sorry work for any one ; at all events, it is a task
upon which I do not care to enter. One thing is very certain — that
you must quit this roof at once. I need not dilate on what will
probably seem to you a very minor matter — that you have utterly
forfeited my affection and esteem, for I do not suppose that they were
ever of much value to you. This is the last time that I shall trouble
you with my presence. Early in the morning I will make arrange-
ments with Mrs. Sutton to receive you temporarily. As to what your
future movements may be, when once you shall have quitted this
house, that is no concern nor interest of mine. In a few hours you
and I will have done with each other for ever."

He rose and moved towards the door. Charlotte was still sitting,
white and motionless, with a face like that of some fair young
sorceress who had just heard her doom.

At the door Hugh turned. " Understand me," he said in slow,
concentrated tones. " To-morrow morning you quit this house for
ever."

" Fear not ; I shall be ready," she answered. Then Hugh went
out, and shut the door after him.

" His heart is as hard as a nether millstone," she murmured as the

A Guilty Silence. 371

noise of his footsteps died away downstairs. And then she fell to the
ground in a fit.

She came to her senses slowly and painfully. But as she called to
mind all that had happened to her within the last few hours, and
remembered that to-morrow she must seek another home, she almost
wished that she had never come back to life. The weather was very
bleak, and she rose from the floor shivering with cold. She bathed
her hands and face, and bound up her hair, and wrapped a warm
shawl round her shoulders. The glare of the lamp dazzled her
sensitive orbs, so she turned it out.

There was upon her a sense of utter loneliness and desolation such
as she had never felt since the first few hours after her mother's
death, and before the friends which that misfortune brought round
her — her cousin Hugh among the rest — had proved to her that
sympathy and love might still be hers, although her best friend was
gone for ever. And now the same sense of being alone in the w^orld
was upon her again, only in a more intense degree, and with a
hopelessness of change that made her very soul grow chill within her.
" I feel as if I were the only flesh-and-blood creature left alive,"
she muttered half-aloud, " and that besides myself the world held
nothing but ghosts. Oh, Hugh ! Hugh ! you are not worthy of
being loved as I would have loved you — as I have loved you ! I
lifted you up in the desert of my heart as a beautiful brazen image,
perfect, inimitable ; but your feet are of clay, when I come to look
closer, and you are not quite the king of men I fondly deemed you
to be. And yet I cannot help loving you — more fool I ! — more
fool I ! "

The darkness and quietude of her rooms, the sense of her utter
isolation from all of her own kind, began to weigh upon her, and
even to frighten her. She opened the door and listened. The
sound of voices in the lower parts of the house came floating up the
staircase — Hugh's deep tones and the thinner voice of a woman, a
voice that Charlotte recognised but too well. Without thought or
care for her actions — for what worse could happen to her than had
happened already ? — and guided only by the impulse of the moment,
she crept noiselessly down the flight of stairs that led from her rooms
to the more inhabited parts of the house, pausing and listening on
every stair as she went down. Near the bottom of the flight, and
concealed from any one on the landing by a curve of the stairs, was
a niche which had probably been intended for the reception of a
statue holding a lamp, but which no one ever remembered to have
been so occupied. Into this recess Charlotte climbed, and there
stowed herself away. She durst not venture any lower down for fear
of encountering Hugh, whose sentence of doom seemed still to ring
in her ears.

The voices sounded nearer and nearer, as Hugh and his wife came
slowly upstairs on their way to bed. In a few moments they reached

z 2

3/2 A Guilty Silence,

the landing immediately below the one close to which Charlotte was
in hiding, and from this point their voices were plainly audible to her.

" I have left the bag that contains my medicine on the hall table,"
said Mrs. Randolph to her husband ; " and as the servants are all in
bed, I shall have to trouble you to fetch it for me."

" What ! you a doctor's wife, and taking another man's physic ! "
exclaimed Hugh. " That will never do. I must make you up a
mixture of my own in the morning."

" Do as you like in the morning," answered Trix, " only let me
have the bottle I brought with me to-night. It has done me so much
good that I intend taking it to the last drop."

" A most praiseworthy resolution ! I no longer hesitate to fetch
the wonderful mixture."

He ran quickly down while Trix waited for him on the landing,
holding her candle aloft over the banisters to light him on his way.

Presently Hugh came back with the bottle, tasting from it as he
came.

" Precisely the sort of stuff that I should have made up for you,"
he exclaimed, with a smack of the lips as he drew near Trix ; " which
shows that your London doctor thoroughly understood your case."

" A one-sided way of paying a compliment to yourself," answered
Trix. " If I had not happened to say that the mixture suited me, I
have no doubt that you would have made me up something entirely
different."

" Just the same impertinent creature that you always were ! " sighed
Hugh. But it was the sigh of a happy man. Then the door of their
room was shut, and Charlotte heard no more.

Charlotte crept back upstairs as noiselessly as she had crept down.
That same sense of loneliness and desolation was still upon her.

" There must surely be other poor wretches in the world as miser-
able as I am, and with troubles as grievous to bear," she murmured.
" They ought to put us on an island by ourselves, we who have
nothing in common with the happy ones of the earth. The most
miserable among us should be king, and they whose troubles were
the heaviest should have command over the rest."

She was in no mood for bed. To sleep would have been an
impossibility as her mind then was. So she coiled herself up in her
favourite easy-chair, and drew a corner of her shawl over her face,
although the room was pitch-dark ; and tried to steady her mind, and
to elicit some coherent chain of thought out of the mental chaos in
which she was blindly struggling.

Go she must on the morrow — seek another home, she neither
knew nor cared whither ; but while still here, she wanted to think out
and elaborate some great scheme of revenge, before which her late
pet project of purloining her rival's letters should pale as a matter of
little moment. Just now, however, she could not think, she could

A Guilty Silence. 373

only feel — she could only writhe, as the trodden worm writhes, no
one either knowing or caring for its agony.

Midnight had struck before her return upstairs. One o'clock and
two o'clock came and went, and still she stirred not ; still she sat
with the red shawl thrown over her head, like some witch awaiting
the summons of her master.

About half-past two Charlotte heard the sharp ting-ting of the
night-bell. She had heard it often before in the sleepless watches of
the night, and knew at once what it meant. Dr. Randolph was
wanted, and must go. Charlotte slid off her chair, and walked
lightly across the floor and opened her door a little way, and listened.
She heard the door of the dressing-room opened, and then she heard
Hugh go lightly downstairs, and let himself out into the street.
Crouched on her hands and knees, like a wild animal in its lair, and
with every nerve on the alert, Charlotte listened without change of
posture for a full half hour. Inside the house all was silent, save the
voice of the old clock on the stairs, ticking monotonously like a
death-watch that never ceased. From without there came no sound,
save now and again a low, faint murmur, as though the wind were
trying to whisper some dread secret, but could not make itself
understood. When the clock struck three, Charlotte arose, and
shook back the heavy masses of her ashen hair, and pressed her
fingers over her burning eyes. As she stood thus, she saw clearly, as
in a vision, the thing she had set her soul to do, and the way in which
it must be done.

" I have shut the door behind me, and the Evil One has the key ;
and now I must go on, happen what may."

Then she went into her bed-room, and took off her red shawl and
her grey winsey gown, and put on another dress, black, soft, and
ghost-like. Then she slipped her feet into a pair of tiny mocassins,
which some traveller had made her a present of, and which she much
affected in her silent perambulations about the house. Just as she
was ready to start, she thought she heard a faint noise downstairs,
not unlike the opening and shutting of a door ; but it was so slight
that it might have been due to almost any other cause — to the creak-
ing of some door or window in the wind, to some movement of the cat
in the regions below stairs, or to the tapping of the old beech-tree in
the garden against the drawing-room window as it swayed to some
stronger gust than common. From whatever cause the sound might
proceed, it caused Charlotte's heart to leap with sudden terror. She
listened where she stood, v/ithout moving, for full ten minutes ; but,
as before, all was silent in the house save the ceaseless death-tick of
the old clock on the stairs.

" I shall be frightened of my ow^n shadow next," she said con-
temptuously. "What I have got to do must be done quickly, for
Hugh may be back any moment."

Then, without a pause, and almost in one breath as it seemed to

374 ^ Guilty Silence.

her, she found herself standing in the corridor at the bottom of the
upper flight of stairs, and within a few yards of Hugh's dressing-room
door. A few swift, stealthy strides took to this door, which she
found ajar, as it had been left by Hugh. Inch by inch Charlotte
pushed it open, till there was space enough for her to enter. With
this room, and with the room beyond it, she was thoroughly
acquainted. The position of every piece of furniture in both of them
was well known to her ; and if only the person in the inner room
were just now sound asleep, she (Charlotte) had little fear about
effecting her purpose undetected. As, however, the person in
question might chance to be awake, Charlotte was obliged to exercise
the utmost precaution. One false step, or chance movement, might
betray her, and frustrate her deadly design. Little by little, a few
inches at a time, she advanced into the dressing-room, hardly
breathing herself in her anxiety to hear the soft, regular breathing
of the inmate of the inner room, telling her that she was asleep. In
the outer room a night-lamp was burning dimly, by whose faint light
everything would have looked vague and impersonal to ordinary eyes,
but it was precisely the sort of half-light that suited Charlotte best.
One of her eyes had strengthened and improved very much of late,
and by such a light as that now in the dressing-room, she could
discern the outlines of almost any object with tolerable clearness.
Thus, in the present case, she could make out each article of
furniture in the room while she was still a yard or two from it ; the
outlines being sufficiently clear for her to recognise what particular
object it might be, although the minute peculiarities of its appearance
were utterly, beyond her powers at present.

Forward she went over the carpeted floor, step by step, black and
silent as a shadow, till the dressing-table was reached. After a
careful but noiseless examination of the different articles on it, she
shook her head with an air of disappointment, and advanced still
deeper into the room. At the further end, and within a couple of
yards of the door that led into the inner room, was a fireplace with a
mantelpiece of white marble. On this mantelpiece Charlotte found
the object she was in search of — the bottle of medicine which Trix
had brought with her from London. It was standing close by the
night-lamp, the light of which shone full upon it. Peering Charlotte,
when she got as far as the mantelpiece, discovered it at once. There
was a label on the bottle, but her eyes were not clever enough to
read it. She held the bottle up between her eyes and the lamp, and
could distinguish that it was about three-parts full. The sleeper in
the next room moved uneasily on her pillow. Charlotte stood for
two or three minutes like one turned into stone ; then, there being
no further sound or movement from the inner room, she glided
quickly back, and regained the corridor, carrying the bottle with her.

Along the corridor, and down the two flights of stairs that brought
her to the ground-floor of the house, Charlotte now went without

A Guilty Silence. 375

hesitation or delay. Five minutes more, and her purpose would be

accomplished. She made straight for the door of the surgery, which,

somewhat to her surprise, she found partially open, and went in.

She concluded that Hugh had had occasion to enter it before leaving

the house, and had omitted to close the door after him. In the

surgery a small jet of gas was always left burning, so that Hugh

might be enabled to find anything at a moment's notice should he be

suddenly summoned in the night ; but even had there been no light,

Charlotte would still have been able to find what she was in want of.

While Charlotte was still quite blind, and long before the image oi

Beatrice Davenant had come between her and her cousin, in her

perpetual pryings into every nook and corner of the old house — if

those could be called pryings where sight was wanting, — she had not

let the surgery pass unvisited. Indeed, it had been a favourite

pastime with her to follow her cousin Hugh there, and assist him in

the concoction of his draughts and mixtures. Her assistance had

probably been a hindrance rather than otherwise to the young

surgeon ; but being eminently good-natured, and perceiving how it

gratified Charlotte to fancy herself of any, the slightest, service to him,

he humoured her whim, and often claimed her help v/hen he was not

particularly busy, and a few minutes more or less in the surgery were

of no great consequence to him.

Charlotte had learned to distinguish most of the principal drugs
and medicaments by their smell, and as each of them had its own
particular place on the surgery shelves, her retentive memory enabled
her to recollect the positions of all the jars and phials the contents of
which were in frequent request. Thus, if Hugh asked her to get him
the opium flask, she would go at once to the shelf on which it was
always put, and counting by means of her fingers the number of
flasks from one end, she would pick out the one asked for, because
she knew that when not in use it was invariably put in the particular
spot from which she had taken it. But to make assurance doubly
sure, she always smelt at the contents before giving the phial to
Hugh.

A certain small top shelf in one corner of the surgery held nothing
but poisons, and for Charlotte this one shelf had more interest than
all the others put together. She never wearied of talking with her
cousin Hugh about subjects that had the remotest reference to
toxicology ; and Hugh, on his part, if he did not always answer her
point-blank questions on such matters as categorically as she would
have liked, did still enlighten her in a certain degree as to the
qualities and effects of the different poisons, vegetable and mineral,
which were contained in the stoppered bottles on the little top shelf.

This shelf was so high from the ground that it could not be reached
without the assistance of a small step-ladder which was always kept in
the surgery. As if in aid of Charlotte's design — " as if the fiend
himself had put them there on purpose," the girl muttered to herself

^76 A Guilty Silence,

— the steps were standing to-night exactly under the shelf which she
was desirous of reaching, so that there was no fear of disturbing any
one in the house by the noise of their removal.

Up these steps — one, two, three — Charlotte climbed slowly, and as
it seemed, only by a great effort, and then stood motionless for a little
while on the top.

Had any one been there to limn her face, they would have seen
how very white it was ; how locked and resolute, with yet an expression
of intense pain across the low, broad forehead, and in the hard set
lines of the mouth. The beautiful eyes were still beautiful, but
looked as the eyes of Lady Macbeth might have looked when she
walked in her sleep, and could not rub the blood stains off her lily
hand.

The flask she was in search of was made of thick green glass, and
its place was the left-hand corner of the top shelf. Placing for a
moment the bottle she had brought with her on a lower shelf, she was
just in the act of putting up her hand to take the flask, when she sud-
denly turned with a startled look on her face, and taking hold of the
skirt of her black dress, she made as though she were pulling it away
from the grasp of some one who had seized it from below.

" I must do it ! I must do it ! " she exclaimed in an excited
whisper, addressing herself to some imaginary person conjured up by
her excited fancy. " I have sworn to be revenged, and I will not
break my oath. Oh, mother, mother ! ask me anything but this.
Ask me to drown myself, — to poison myself, and I will not hesitate a
moment. Life has no joy for me, death no dread. But this thing I
must do, whatever may come after. Release me, mother ! Release
me, I say ! Though all the dead in Elvedon churchyard were to rise
from their graves and entreat me, they should not turn me from my
purpose. — She is gone — gone ! Ah, me ! perhaps I shall never see
her more, not even in the land of shadows, and when I am a ghost
myself."

Her eyes, as she spoke these last words, seemed to follow the figure
till it disappeared through the doorway. Then, with another great
sigh, she seemed to drag herself back from all thought save of what
she had yet to do. Without allowing herself another moment for
hesitation, see took down the green flask drew out the stopper and
smelt the contents, so as to make herself certain that it really held the
subtle and deadly poison that she expected to find in it. Satisfied
that she was right as to the poison, she uncorked the medicine bottle,
poured on to the floor about a quarter of what it contained, and filled
it up from the flask to the original mark. Slowly and steadily, with-
out the waste of a single drop, she poured in the poison. Then she
put back the flask, recorked the bottle, and stepped down to the
ground, giving utterance, as she did so, to one of her low, witch-like
laughs.

She was passing round a corner of the counter on her way to leave

I

A Guilty Silence. 377

the room when all at once she came to a dead stand, and in that
single moment the expression of her countenance changed to one of
the most extreme terror. A certain delicate instinct, which most blind
people possess in a greater or lesser degree, told her that she was not
alone in the room. Some one beside herself was there. She stood
perfectly motionless, only breathing a little faster than she was wont.

There was one corner of the surgery, where a large cupboard had
formerly stood, that was in deeper shadow than the rest, and it was
here that the unseen witness of what she had done was lurking. On
entering the room she had taken the opposite side of the counter, but
on her way back to the door the skirts of her dress must almost have
swept the intruder's feet ; and it was her proximity to him, although
her eyes had utterly failed to detect his presence, that had told her she
was not alone.

" Who is there ? Speak ! " said Charlotte at last, when the death-
like silence was no longer endurable. It seemed to her that it was
not she, Charlotte Heme, who spoke, but some one else with a voice
that came from beyond the grave.

" It is I, Hugh Randolph," answered the young surgeon, as he
stepped out of his dark corner. He had come back after half an
hour's absence, and had let himself quietly in by means of his latch-
key. He had gone direct into the surgery, and after doing what he
wanted, had just turned down the gas preparatory to going back to bed,
when he was startled by hearing a light footstep coming swiftly down
the lower flight of stairs and had but just time to step back into the
dim corner, when Charlotte entered the room.

"You here, cousin ! " murmured Charlotte almost inaudibly, and the
tell-tale bottle, dropping from her nerveless fingers, was smashed into a
dozen pieces on the ground.

" Wretch 1 " cried Hugh. " I have seen all that you have done
since you came into this room. You are a murderess in intention,
and would have been one in fact had I not been led here, and so
enabled to frustrate your hellish design. Your mother was my father's
sister ; I cannot forget that. Therefore, all that I can do, even now,
after this fresh proof of your desire to work me harm, is to banish you
from this house for ever. But I will give you no further chance of
working mischief while you remain here. I shall lock you up in your
own rooms till nine in the morning, at which hour I shall expect you
to be ready to leave. Upstairs if you please. I dare not trust you
out of my sight again till I have you safe under lock and key. Go ! "

Charlotte answered not a single word, did not even confront him
with her eyes ; but at Hugh's last word she walked out of the room.
Out of the room, along the corridor, and upstairs, slowly, mechani-
cally like a woman in a dream ; the young surgeon, stern and pale,
holding aloft a small hand lamp which he had lighted at the gas in
the surgery.

Hugh said afterwards that never till his dying day would that picture

3/8 A Guilty Silence.

be forgotten by him : the picture of Charlotte Heme going slowly up
the wide, old-fashioned, oaken staircase, in her mocassins, and her long,
trailing, black robe ; her face a livid white, like that of a person some
days dead ; her ashen locks streaming low down over her shoulders ;
her diminutive figure, erect, and braced up ; and her bearing as proud
and defiant as that of a queen on her way to execution.

To the young surgeon those three flights of stairs that had to be
traversed before Charlotte's room was reached formed a veritable via
dolorosa that seemed as if it would never come to an end. When the
door was reached, Charlotte struck it open with a blow of her hand,
and then without a word, or even a turn of the head, she went in, and
passed at once out of the dim circle of light reflected from Hugh's
lamp into the intense darkness of the room beyond. She melted, as
it were, into the blackness, and became a portion of it.

Hugh shut the door, and locked it from the outside, and then went
do^^Tlstairs, carrying the key with him. At nine o'clock he went back
upstairs, and knocked at the door. There was no reply. He unlocked
the door and went in. He found Charlotte l3^ing on her bed in the
adjoining room, dressed as he had seen her last. A small empty phial
on the ground close by told the tale but too well.

One of her last acts, if not the very last, had been to pin a scrap
of paper to the bosom of her dress, on which she had written these
words : —

" HERE LIES CHARLOTTE HERNE.

SHE LOVED NOT WISELY, BUT TOO WELL.

PITY HER, AND PRAY FOR THE PEACE OF HER SOUL."

{To be cojicluded.)

379

"TREASURES."

T^OMESTIC servants whose master I have been in reality or in
•^-^ name — these are my " treasures." It is as well to state this at
the outset ; otherwise some readers of this magazine might consider
the title a delusion and a snare.

There are " treasures " and " treasures." There is the servant who
is handed over to you as a paragon of perfection — afterwards you
often wonder why — and there is the one who establishes a right to
the title by honest and faithful service, by evincing a genuine regard
for, and interest in, your well-being. Also there is the servant who
is a " treasure " because he or she is a curiosity.

It is now many years since I joined my regiment in Ireland, a boy
of eighteen, thoughtful only of the pleasures of life, and ignorant of
its cares and anxieties. The captain of my company, a worthy old
soldier — young captains were scarce in those days — was kindness
itself, and I always look back with grateful feelings to the paternal
interest he took in me, the kind word he always had for me, and the
firm but gentle reproof he administered to me when reproof was
necessary.

One of his first acts of kindness lay in his selecting, after much
thought, an old soldier of the company as my soldier-servant, in
whose tender care he placed me. John Dodd, who was one of the
oldest soldiers in the regiment, was one of the best officer's servants I
have ever come across. He was not beautiful to look upon ; indeed,
his countenance was at first view rather repellent. His complexion
was of the boiled-lobster hue, his eyes were blue but watery, and he
wore a big red moustache and long red Dundreary whiskers which
harmonised ill both with the crimson of his face and the scarlet of
his coat. Yet the watery eyes had withal a soft sympathetic look,
and beneath the scarlet jacket beat as gentle a heart as ever beat in
woman.

John Dodd saw at once that I was green, very green, in the ways
of the world, and especially of the military world. Yet he never
traded or presumed on my greenness. He treated me as the boy I
was, yet with the respect due from the good soldier to his officer.
He taught me what to do and what not to do ; he instilled habits of
punctuality and neatness. I well remember how, on calling me one
morning after a " big night " at mess, he looked at me sorrowfully, as
I lay in bed feeling very miserable and not a little ashamed, and,
shaking his rubicund head, suggested quietly that late hours and
drink were things to be avoided. Poor old Dodd ! he drank like a
fish himself, I verily believe, though he " carried it " so well that

3 So " Treasures y

never once did I see him the worse for Hquor, never once did
anything but the increased radiance of his countenance and an
almost imperceptible tremor betray his bibulous propensities. Wrong
as it may seem for me to say so, while I took his admonition to
heart and resolved thenceforward to abjure late hours and excessive
joviality, I nevertheless could not help entertaining a certain feeling
of admiration for the knowing old soldier, who could enjoy his drink
so diplomatically as to appear always void of offence.

In course of time the regiment was ordered to India. John Dodd,
however, with his good-conduct medal and his five good-conduct
badges, was detailed to remain at home and join the regimental
depot. Before we left, the honest old soldier presented me with an
ink-stand and a tobacco-pouch. The latter, which is by me while I
write, was made out of the skin of a wild cat he had shot in New
Zealand. As a last parting gift, he brought to my quarters the day
before we embarked at Queenstown a very ugly pin-cushion which he
had made with great care and skill of pieces of red, buff, blue, and
vari-coloured cloths, ornamented with white beads, with forget-me-
nots worked in blue and green beads in the centre and the words
" Remember me " in brown beads beneath. He and his wife both
wept over me. At least a dozen times did he wish me good-bye,
sobbing the while like a child ; and when the final parting came, I
am not ashamed to confess that the tears sprang to my eyes, for I
felt that in leaving him I was losing not only a trusty servant, but a
real, kind-hearted friend.

Honest John Dodd ! You have long ago been laid to rest, your
soldiering days are long since passed, but your earnest devotion and
disinterested thoughtfulness will remain ever fresh in my memory.

My next " treasure " was a faithful old Hindoo " bearer " (or valet)
named Suraj something or other, whom my brother subalterns dubbed
Sir Roger. What a good fellow he was ! How angry I used to be
because he would not speak English, and because I could not speak
Hindustani ! But all the anger was on my side ; he was always
patient, long-suffering, and willing, careful of my interests and as true
as steel.

On returning from leave during my first hot-weather in India, Sir
Roger, whom I had left in charge of my bungalow and belongings,
greeted me in the verandah with a present in the shape of a tailless
parrot enclosed within a cruelly diminutive cage. Knowing how the
guileless Hindoo will often almost pluck an old bird to pass it off as
a young one, I at first feared that even the wary Sir Roger had been
imposed upon by one of his unscrupulous countrymen ; and while
thanking him for his gift, I threw out a hint at the bare possibiUty of
the bird being an old one, in which case I should never be able to
teach him to talk. The poor old bearer's feelings were wounded at
the very suggestion. " No, Sahib," he said in an aggrieved tone,
" he not ole bird, he young bird ! I buy him soon after master go

"Treasures.'" 381

away on leaf ; then he all meat, no hair " — by which he intended to
convey that the parrot when purchased was scarcely fledged.

To atone for my apparent ungraciousness I took the greatest
interest in that bird. I provided him with a palatial cage, and many
hours of those long hot-weather days did I devote to his education.
After covering the cage over with a cloth, I used to sit alongside and
repeat the same tomfoolery over and over again, till I was sick of the
sound of my own voice. Sir Roger and the Munsh', who was
teaching me Hindustani, evinced an equally keen interest in the
parrot's instruction. They would take turns of "" Prittee Palee " and
" Palee love sugar." It was no use. Either from " cussedness " or
from deficient cerebral development the parrot maintained a dogged
silence for the months that I kept him — a silence only broken at
intervals by an angry, blood-curdling screech and a wrestle with the
bars or perches of his cage.

At that time my live-stock, exclusive of horse-flesh, consisted of a
dear old dog, two monkeys, a mungoose, a mina, four squirrels, a
kitten, and a small aviary full of avatavats and other small birds.
Early one morning, before I was out of bed, I heard great " ructions "
going on in the thatched roof of my bungalow, immediately over my
head.

Shortly afterwards Sir Roger came in to call me, his face literally
beaming with delight. He informed me that he had secured a
valuable addition to my miniature menagerie, to wit two young wild
cats. When dressed I went out and found two diabolical-looking
little animals with collars and tethers on ; and under the tree to
which they were fastened was a large inverted flower-pot, in which a
door had been made, placed there by the sweeper under Sir Roger's
directions. They were not ordinary wild cats or j'ang/i billi^ that was
very evident, but what they were I could not for the life of me tell.
They had fox-like heads, and the most evil expression I have ever
seen in man or beast. The Munshi said they were animals that fed
on dead bodies, but as I had no dead bodies handy, and did not
want any, I was never able to verify this assertion.

Sir Roger, who was firmly convinced that they would soon become
tame and tractable, would squat on his heels by the hour — at a safe
distance from the " cats " — snapping his fingers and coaxing the
brutes with every sort of blandishment. It was very amusing to
watch the old man at " feeding time," pushing their saucers of bread
and milk within their reach with a long stick. His patience was
wonderful, but unrewarded. For weeks the same performance went
on several times a day, but the savage little beasts, with their un-
earthly cries, steadily repudiated the delicate attentions of Sir Roger.

They appeared to thrive, until one morning one of them was found
unaccountably dead. The other seemed to pine so much that at last
I had it killed. Poor old Sir Roger, whom they had cordially hated
throughout the period of their acquaintance with him, was quite

382 *' Treasures.''^

distressed. For myself, I must say I did not share his grief; for
though I was sorry the wretched creatures had ever been captured
and placed in confinement, still once they were caught I did not care
to let them loose about the place again — especially if they were on
the look-out for my dead body.

Time passed till one fine day the regiment received orders to
proceed to ^Afghanistan. I was only allowed to take one servant on
active service, and consequently as a Mussulman or low-caste Hindoo
was necessary to look after my inner man, and as Sir Roger, besides
being too old, was not of sufficiently low caste to do this work, I had
to part with him.

The poor old fellow was very downcast, called me his father and
mother, hoped I would come back from the war a Lord Sahib, and
so on. Mine was the loss, however, for a valuable servant like Sir
Roger soon found another master, whereas I had to take in his place
a lanky oily-tongued Mohammedan, a man with a perpetual grievance,
rejoicing in the high-sounding though common name of Khuda
Bakhsh ("the gift of God").

This beauty soon tired of the bitter cold of the Khyber in winter,
and became very discontented ; but it was not till we had gone
farther up-country, and moved to a detached post in the turbulent
Shinwari country, that Khuda Bakhsh's discomfort and dislike of
active service caused his grandmother to die hundreds of miles away
at Allahabad — a bereavement which necessitated his immediate
return to India. A native servant's mother or grandmother will die
for him again and again in the most magnanimous way whenever he
is dissatisfied with his place.

I was not sorry to lose Khuda Bakhsh, in spite of the high
character which I had received with him. He had drawn fabulous
wages for some months, had been fitted out with warm clothes and a
plentiful supply of blankets, and, as far as he was concerned, had
done pretty well ; yet I felt rather " up a tree " to know how I should
replace him on active service in an enemy's country, especially at
this out-of-the-way place, detached from the line of communications.

To my surprise and relief, however, a substitute was instantly
forthcoming. This was a Madrasi Christian named Francis, a man
with excellent " chits " (testimonials) and a great deal too good a
knowledge of English, for he could both speak and write it. But
beggars cannot be choosers, so I took him. We got on pretty well
for a few days. He seemed intelligent and willing.

We went out for some days on an expedition, moving with as little
baggage as possible. One camel was allowed for the kits of every
eight officers, and, as the camels were to be loaded as lightly as
possible, each officer was only able to take a flannel shirt, a pair of
socks, soap, towel, and tooth-brush. Francis, who was with the
camel on which my kit was carried, carefully contrived to lose my
small bundle. As a consequence, when I wanted a change, I was

" Treasures.'' 383

obliged to undress and wash my shirt and socks in a stream, letting
them dry afterwards in the luckily broiling May sun, while I sat in
the shade of a tree with my helmet on my head and a borrowed towel
girt about my loins.

This little episode did not increase my affection for Francis. Nor
was that worthy exactly happy and contented, for the dangers of
actual warfare disturbed his equanimity. Hitherto he had passed his
time in comparative safety in the stationary camps on the line of
communications near the base at Peshawur. Accordingly, when we
got back to camp after the successful termination of our expedition,
Francis also had the misfortune to lose his grandmother, or his mother
— I forget which.

My next venture was a camel-boy named Maghi, a very respectable
young Punjabi Mussulman, who, having been sent by his father to
enlist in a native cavalry regiment, had fallen amongst thieves at
Loodiana, in the shape of gamblers, who fleeced him. Unable to
enlist and buy a horse, and ashamed to return to his respected parent,
he had taken service as a sarwdn (camel-driver) and gone to the front.
Being an intelligent and energetic boy, he had been promoted to the
rank of Diiffadar ; but, numerous camels having gone the way of all
flesh, his office became a sinecure, and I was thus able to get him as
a private servant. As he could only speak Punjabi, of which I hardly
knew a word, our conversation was mostly carried on by dumb show.
However, he soon picked up Hindustani, and in a short time became
a smart hard-working servant, always faultlessly turned out. I grew
to like the boy very much, and congratulated myself on having
aocidentally become the possessor of such a treasure.

Soon after the regiment returned to India, a cash-box in my
quarters was cut open, and a considerable sum of money was
abstracted from it. Maghi was the very last person to be suspected
of the theft. Moreover, it occurred when I was at mess, where
Maghi was waiting at table behind my chair. I happened to go over
to my quarters immediately after mess, and discovered the theft. I
sent for Maghi. I might as well have questioned the Sphinx. To
all appearances he was as innocent as my colonel. A few days
afterwards, however, the boy was caught en flagrant delit stealing from
a brother-servant who had saved a considerable sum of money with a
view to getting married.

Of course it was a case of cherchez lafemme. It came out that
Mr. Maghi had a lady friend in the bazaar, and, his generosity to her
being quite out of proportion to his monthly wage, he had resorted
to gambling to provide funds. Games of chance having proved
altogether too precarious a method of ensuring a steady and regular
supply of the needful, he had adopted the more certain one of
directly substituting tuu7n for meu7n. It also transpired that he had
slipped across from the mess-house to my quarters, ripped open the
cash-box with a knife, abstracted the cash (leaving the notes), and

0

84 " Treasures.'"

returned to the mess in time to change my plate for the next course,
with that placid and stolid countenance so peculiar to the Oriental.
The last time I saw poor Maghi, he was handcuffed and chained,

under escort to P , to do " six months hard " in the gaol at that

place.

It was now that an officer of the regiment who was leaving for
England handed me over /lis treasure — a high-caste Hindoo named
Damri. The character I received with him could not have been
surpassed. He was indeed a most capable and excellent servant,
though his caste was rather a stumbling-block. He was obliged to
devote the greater part of every morning to his ablutions 3.ndJ>uja.
(worship), after which he would eat his roti-khd7ia * clad in nothing
but a loin-cloth, no matter what the state of the weather. Once
when I was ill I wanted him to remove an empty cup, in which there
had been beef-tea, from the chair by my bedside, and place some
books there instead. My order, quite thoughtlessly given, was too
much for the pious Hindoo. With a terrified look he eyed the cup
as though it were a snake or scorpion, backed softly out of the room,
and returned in a few minutes with my Mussulman khidfjiatgdr
(table-servant), directing him to remove the offensive article !

Poor Damri ! he was a good fellow in his way, and a faithful
servant. He remained in my service for nearly eighteen months,
and, as far as I was concerned, might have remained longer; but,
owing partly to his dislike of the Punjab and partly to my going on
sick-leave to a hill-station — the native of the plains does not like the
hills, as a rule — he made up his mind to leave.

To effect his object, he brought me a telegram from Lucknow
addressed to him, and informing him that a law-suit about some
property belonging to his family or claimed by his family was about
to come on, and begging him to repair with all haste to Lucknow, as
his evidence was essential to the success of the case. He said he
would have to start that very afternoon by the mail-cart, leaving me,
still barely convalescent, in the lurch for a bearer. I told him he
could go, and that he need not think of returning. At this speech
he expressed surprise, though of course he really had not the
remotest intention of coming back. With expressions of profound
regret at leaving the shadow of my illustrious presence, he hurried off
to catch the mail and go down to the plains.

Some days afterwards I saw him swaggering about the bazaar.
Probably he was waiting for a chum to accompany him down-
country ; but, needless to say, as I had thought from the first,
property and law-suit were alike the offspring of a fertile imagination.

For some time afterwards I thought myself rather fortunate to
possess servants who were not treasures. They " pursued the even
tenor of their way " without distinguishing themselves in any manner.
After this I came home on long leave.

* Meal ; literally, bread-food or bread-meal.

" Treasures.'' 385

On my return to India I arrived at the station in which my
regiment was quartered just in time to secure an excellent bearer,
whose master, a staff officer, was leaving for England. This man,
Gunga Ram, was a first-rate head-servant, for he kept the syces
(grooms), sweepers, and other inferior servants up to the mark in
such a lordly way that they really respected him a great deal more
than they did me. From long service as a servant to bachelor officers
he had acquired considerable wealth, and had quite an extensive
wardrobe. He was always turning out in some different-coloured gold-
laced waistcoat, while round his neck he wore a massive gold chain,
and his pudgy brown fingers were covered with rings. Take him all
round he was a very superior person, and so impressed with his
appearance and haughty demeanour was a lady of my acquaintance
that she dubbed him " The Maharajah," a name which stuck to him.

One of the very few objections I had to him was that he was
teaching himself English, and would while away his leisure time by
scribbling my initials or my name all over the walls of my house.
Unfortunately for the Maharajah, after he had been some six months
in my service, I was married. The immediate effect of my marriage
as regards him was that his monthly bill for lamp-oil, matches, forage,
blacking, dogs' food, and numerous such items disappeared. My wife
used to drive to the bazaar and do her own shopping. Consequently
the Maharajah was no longer in a position to make purchases on my
behalf, and make a profit varying from fifty to a hundred per cent.
He accordingly quitted my service after a short time. I was sorry to
lose him for many reasons, though of course there was no alternative.

A month or so before the Maharajah left, we were fortunate in
getting into our service an excellent bheestie * (water-carrier). To my
mind the bheestie is the best class of servant in India. In nine cases
out of ten he is hard-working, contented, faithful, and inoffensive ;
and he is gifted with more pluck and endurance than all his fellow-
servants put together.

Jan Muhammad was not only all this, but he had the additional
advantage of having been taught, while with his late master, to w^ait
at table. We used him as bheestie and \in(^Qx-khid??iatgdr, and seeing
what admirable stuff the man was made of, we soon afterwards
promoted him to the high office of bearer and chief of all the servants.
He was a real treasure to us, and I only hope his next master found
him as invaluable as we did. Without exception he was the most
honest and truthful servant I ever came across in India, and his
devotion to us, and later to our child, was quite pathetic. He could
not speak a word of English, which w^as trying to my wife, just fresh
out from England ; but she had a pretty little ayah, also a treasure
in her way, who acted as interpreter when necessary. This ayah,
by-the-bye, was one of the few natives of India whom I have seen

* More properly, bihishti; the real meaning is "an inhabitant of
Paradise."

VOL. Liv. 2 A

386 " Tr easier es.'^

blush. She was very vain of her rosy cheeks, and once told my wife
in confidence that, sweeper's wife as she was, she had rather a
contempt for her fellow-countrymen and women, and was certain that
she must have some English blood coursing in her veins !

Jan Muhammad and the aja/i stayed with us for the remainder of
our time in India. When we started on the long railway journey
down to Bombay, the faithful Jan Muhammad accompanied us, the
little aya/i being replaced by an excellent Irish nurse, the wife of a
sergeant in another regiment.

Jan Muhammad's assiduity and attention during that trying journey
were only surpassed by his wonderful self-denial and devotion during
the few days we spent in Bombay. The morning of our arrival our
baby w^as taken seriously ill, and for three or four days her condition
caused us the utmost anxiety. Jan Muhammad took up his abode
on a blanket stretched in the passage outside the door of our rooms.
There the honest fellow sat night and day, battling against sleep, in
readiness to do anything he could to save the life of the little one he
loved so well. I had almost to order him to go away to his meals.
When the baby began to mend nothing pleased him more than to be
allowed to walk up and down, up and down, carrying her tenderly in
his arms, crooning to her, or talking to her. He had never seen
the sea in his life before, but this did not prevent his coming out to
the troopship with us in the boat. He was determined to see the
last of us, and w^ould have gone with us to the world's end. When
at last he had to go down the ship's side and return to the hinder
(quay), the poor fellow quite broke down. He stood in the boat
waving to us until he reached the shore, and we were no longer able
to distinguish him in the distant crowd.

Should our fate ever lead us again to India, I only hope we may
be lucky enough to once more secure the services of honest Jan
Muhammad.

After a short and uneventful stay in England, we were sent to
Dublin, and for several years our regiment remained in Ireland.

So numerous are the stories which have been told of Irish servants
and their peculiarities, that our experiences of them would appear
tame. Nevertheless, of the many Irish servants we have had, some
few are deserving of notice, and these have been treasures simply
because they have been curiosities. No doubt there are hundreds of
Irish servants who are treasures for other and better reasons, but it
does not generally fall to the lot of members of the " foreign garrison "
to secure the services of these excellent individuals. Moreover, the
ways of Irish servants, as a body, are not well adapted to the
requirements of fastidious EngHsh people. No offence is meant. I
merely say this because it may be that an Irish servant who is a real
" jew'l" to an Irish master or mistress, is underrated or misunderstood
by the cold and calculating Englishman.

As in India, so in Ireland, servants on leaving their places are

I

I

1

" Treasures.'^ 387

furnished with written characters. The *' chits " of India are the
" discharges " of Ireland. Every servant applying for a place sends
or brings his or her " discharges," and very amusing these " dis-
charges " sometimes are. I may as well tell the English reader who
contemplates residence in Ireland, that an unwritten law exists that
a servant's " discharge " should have on it a certificate that he or she
" is discharged having been paid all wages due." I suppose, as this
is almost invariably done, it is a necessary precaution in writing a
" discharge." At any rate it is as well to do in Rome as the
Romans do.

Bridget P , an extraordinary person, came to us after we had

been some time in Dublin, with an excellent " discharge " from a
large house in the country. She was a very plain girl with super-
abundant spirits and a "gift of the gab" that would put many a
Nationalist " mimber " to the blush. She would " always be talkin' "
— to use her own expression — either to us, the other domestics,
visitors at the door, orderlies, postmen, messengers, errand-boys, or
failing a listener, to herself. One day a brother officer, who always
blushed like a girl when speaking to one, came to call about two
minutes after w^e left the house. Bridget opened the door to him.

" Is Mrs. M- ■ at home ? " he asked, blushing to the roots of his

hair. " She is not," was the reply. " She's afther goin' out this
minute wid the masther " — then, after a pause — " an' it's bad luck you
have, an' afther runnin' so hard too, an' gettin' so hot ! But shure
they won't be gone far ; you'll catch them if ye run up the sthreet
and turn to yure lift ! "

Bridget had an uncle and aunt living in Dublin — at least, she said
so. The consequence was that she was frequently asking for an
" evening out." We always thought the uncle was a most hospitable
man, for he was constantly inviting her to what she called a " spree."
It was not till after she had been several months in our service that
we accidentally learned that the " sprees " took place in the quarters
of a married non-commissioned officer of the regiment, where she met
an attractive and affectionate (though, I regret to say, fickle) sergeant.
We never discovered the real address of the uncle.

We were sitting in the drawing-room one night after dinner, when
Bridget returned from a visit to her relations. She knocked at the
drawing-room door, and entered, looking very perturbed and holding
a handkerchief to her mouth. Removing the handkerchief, she
disclosed the loss of one of her very large front teeth, and launched
forth thus :

" Oh, ma'am ! what will I do, what will I do ? Shure I've bruk off
me tooth, glory be to goodness ! an' nobody'U speak to me wid a
face like this, an' I won't be able to show me face to any one, bad
luck to ut ! "

" What's happened, Bridget ? How did you do it ? " asked my
wife.

2 A 2

388 " Treasures.'*

" Oh ! shure an' it's me own fault entirely for goin' aginst me
mother's wishes and entherin' a Protestant shop ! D' ye know Mr.
Murphy the bootmaker ? Shure an' it's his shop in Blank Street, an'
he a Protestant, an' his wife a frind of mine, she bein' in service wid
me before she was married ; an' me mother said to me, ' Bridget,'
says she, ' Murphy is a Protestant,' says she, ' an' don't you have any
thruck wid him.' An' I was afther leavin' me uncle's house, an' I
thought I'd come home by Blank Street just to pass the time o' day
to Mrs. Murphy, an' I cot me foot in the door-step and fell down in
the shop an' swallowed me tooth, glory be to goodness ! an' but for
his bein' a Protestant it would niver have happened, an' shure I'll
niver be able to show me face lookin' such a guy ! "

All this was rattled off to an accompaniment of sobs, and one
would have thought something very terrible had happened.

The next day my wife sent the girl off to a dentist who replaced
the lost tooth by a false one, and Bridget was herself again. A few
days later, however, she once more put in an appearance in the
drawing-room late in the evening, this time jubilant and shaking with
laughter, though the false tooth was conspicuous by its absence.

"Shure I was pickin' a chicken-bone," she said, "an' I tuk out the
tooth an' put it on the plate ; an' afther I finished eating' the bone I
emptied the plate, bones an' tooth an' all into the fire ! Oh, glory be
to goodness, an' it's a great laugh I'm havin' ! "

She enjoyed the joke thoroughly, now that she knew how easily a
dentist could restore her lost beauty.

Bridget once informed us that an Irish priest would not visit a sick
parishioner unless he was paid half-a-crown in advance. As we are
" Protestants " she perhaps invented this, under the impression that it
would please us. She also told us that she had a brother a priest ;
but she did not say whether he increased his income in this business-
like manner.

By-the-way we had another Bridget — a cook — for about a fortnight.
This worthy was requested to scrub the front-door steps one day. A
look of horror came over her face. "Is it me .?" she almost shrieked,
" is it me scrub the front-door steps and be laughed at by every one
in the street ? " — our house stood well back from the road, and a
shrubbery in the middle of the garden sheltered it from the public
view — " An' indeed I will not ! "

" Why, servants in London always do it ! " responded my wife
mildly, terrified by the virago's outburst of indignation.

The cook's upper lip curled, and placing her arms a-kimbo she
looked her mistress in the face, while with ineffable scorn and
contempt she replied — ''''Dublin isn't Lo?idon.^^ (Poor, one-horse
London ! ) Bridget the cook left at very short notice.

Some years later, when quartered in the South of Ireland, we got
another " treasure " with excellent " discharges." She was a highly
respectable widow whom I will call Mrs. Flanagan, a plain cook but

" Treasitres."' 389

a good-looking woman, and neat and tidy for one of her race ; very
civil-tongued and plausible. Finding that I was consuming about four
large bottles of whisky, and a plentiful supply of Avine every week, I
resolved one Sunday morning before going to church to mark the
bottles and decanters which were kept locked up in the side-board of
our dining-room. Mrs. Flanagan happened to be the only servant
left in the house. On returning from church I unlocked the cupboard
and found the contents of each bottle and decanter considerably
diminished. In the afternoon we went out to some friends in the
country, but before going I placed a large placard " stop thief," in
front of the bottles, locked the cupboard, and put the key in my
pocket. Almost immediately after our return home in the evening,
Mrs. Flanagan came up and gave notice.

After she had left, the parlour-maid, who had always stood in
wholesome awe of Mrs. F. — this parlour-maid, by-the-way, had a
pleasant trick of leaving us in the middle of dinner to converse with
her " young man " at the back-gate — explained the worthy woman's
modus operandi. She used to pull out the drawer over the cupboard,
put her arm through and slip the bolt of the lock ; help herself freely,
slip back the bolt, and replace the drawer. Doubtless a very old
dodge, but worth explaining, perhaps, to the uninitiated.

I shall not write my " treasures " up to date. To none of those of
whom I have written do I bear any ill-will whatever ; to many I look
back with feelings of affection and esteem.

A RESPITE.

I CRAVE a pause amid the fret and grief;

A season's slumber, when the charm-drawn soul

Might dream that all the clouds that round it roll
Were curtains fashioned for its sweet relief ;
And every vexing book had turned its leaf

And shown life's tangled issues clear and whole,

Their purpose glorious as the aureole
That crowns His brow Who holds the heavens in fief.
But never here the seeker knows true rest.

The meed of battles fought and victories won ;
New plans of time and fate must throng his breast,

Nay, bread be toiled for till the setting sun :
On — on ; through storm and radiance, must he wend
His difficult path towards an unknown End.

390

THE TOWER BY THE SEA.
I.

TN a certain suburb of London, and in a front drawing-room of
■^ the same, at about ten o'clock on a fine autumn morning, were
two persons, a man and a young girl — the former seated at the piano,
the latter standing at his side.

She as lovely a girl as you might well wish to see, with her wealth of
golden hair, eyes the colour of forget-me-nots, a complexion like a
wild rose, and a form such as needed but a year or two more to swell
out into the full rounded proportions of perfect womanhood. For
she was barely eighteen, and in her exceedingly girlish dress looked
even younger than she really was.

He must have been about thirty-five, and a glance at his dark eyes
and hair, at his mobile features and his delicately-shaped hands and feet,
at once told of foreign extraction. His features were what are termed
" good," and he might possibly have been called " handsome," had
not traces of small-pox marred the harmony of his face. Not that
the scars were very great ; only just sufficient to call forth a regret
from the beholder, who had time and attention for the exterior only,
and to whom the depths within were as unsought as unsuspected.
Who would not trouble to gaze into those large dark eyes, whose
wonderful beauty went straight to the heart of those who cared to scan
their soft, earnest truthfulness.

One of his hands was slowly turning over the pages of the music
before him ; his other arm had glided round the waist of the girl
standing behind him. He drew her somewhat nearer and looked up
into her face.

She slightly inclined towards him, but did not return his gaze.
Nay, she seemed to avoid it. Her clear blue eyes had no cloud of
emotion on their brightness ; they were fixed calmly, and apparently
intently, upon the sheet of music she held in her hand.

" My Catherine ! " he murmured, in the unmistakable accents of
deep affection. But she made no response. Something like a stifled
sigh broke from his breast.

" I had a letter from Angelo this morning," he continued after a
short pause ; "he will be here by the end of May — just in time for
our wedding, my darling."

A sudden flush passed over her face ; her hand closed tighter upon
the paper she was holding, and her head turned slightly away from
him.

" Is your brother still at Milan ? " she asked, in the tone of one not

The Tower by the Sea. 391

really caring for information, but seeking relief in the utterance of an
indifferent remark.

" Yes ; but his studies are nearly ended, and he is only waiting for
the fulfilment of certain formalities in order to come over and settle
here in England."

" He has very great talent, you say."

*' Talent — yes, he has, indeed. He was one of the first pupils in
the Conservatory, and I hope and believe that he has a great and
glorious future before him."

" He is much younger than you, is he not ? "

Here she turned and looked down upon him. He was gazing
dreamily at the page open before him, so that she had ample time to
mark the grey streaks which, here and there, were beginning to show
themselves in her future husband's dark locks.

" Younger by ten years, at least ; and yet a better and an abler
man than I ever was, or ever shall be."

There was no touch of envy in the tone — only a world of trium-
phant, glad affection.

" Ah, you will see how Angelo will brighten us all up when he
comes. You don't repent of what you said about his living with us,
do you ? "

" Not in the least ; only, are you sure he will like it ? "

" Could he do otherwise ? Ah, Catterina mia, if you had once
seen Angelo, you would never have asked that question."

" Well, I meant — I only thought "

"And just think what an advantage it will be for you," interrupted
Carlo, who, like every Italian, never lost sight of the good to be
gathered, no matter how deep the cloud of sentiment through which
he might be gazing.

" But he is a pianist and composer ; whilst I "

" Have one of the most perfect voices that ever fell from mortal
lips. When Angelo has once heard you, you will be his inspiration.
He will write for you — his name is already beginning to be known.
Ah ! your voice and his talent combined must and shall take the
world itself by storm."

A glow passed over the girl's face, her eyes flashed, and she involun-
tarily drew herself up. Who can tell what visions of golden glory
gleamed across her young imagination like the flash of summer light-
ning gilding the bank of cold grey cloud upon the far-off horizon ?
Her red lips parted, and she was just about to speak, when the door
opened, and an elderly faded lady looked into the room.

" Catherine, come here for a moment. I want you to help me in
choosing some curtains." Then, with a nod to Carlo, the faded lady
disappeared, and the young girl, in obedience to her mother's request,
left the room.

Carlo rose, sighed, and walked slowly to the window. The view
was not a particularly cheering one. The ill-kept strip of garden

392 The Tower by the Sea.

immediately below ; then a hard macadamized road and a hedge,
beyond which a dreary waste of potato fields apparently losing them-
selves in the grey, lowering mist indicative of the site of the world's
metropolis.

Carlo stood and gazed, and as he did so, imagination began her
usual trick and conjured up a well-known vision of southern loveliness
and glory in terrible contrast to the grim reality before him.

A low rustic dwelling upon the slope of a hill — the wooden gallery
around the upper storey thickly hung with the golden ears of maize
and strings of scarlet capsicums. In front, the wreathing vines trained
over a high trellis-work — '''■ pergolata " — with a rustic table and
benches beneath it, a shelter of mingled fruit and foliage. Beyond
this, and sloping down towards the plain, the well-kept vineyard with
its long, luxuriant rows, all unbroken save here and there, by the
heavy foliage of a broad-boughed fig-tree, or the light, feathery
branches of the peach. Behind the house, and rising abruptly from
the little piazza upon which it stood, the olive wood, terrace upon
terrace, until the very summit of the hill was reached, and whence a
view of marvellous beauty burst upon the beholder.

Right and left, undulating hills blue with olive groves, yet, here and
there, breaking out into a mass of deep red crags intermingled with
sturdy chestnuts. To the north, the spurs of the Apennines rearing
their bold heads higher and higher, now gently rising in rounded
swell, then starting abruptly forth in all the solemn grandeur of
precipice and peak — a wild chaos of stony glen and pine-crowned
height terminating in snow-clad summits revealing themselves in
dazzling white against the deep blue of the sky overhead. To the
south, a long stretch of cornfields and orchards, dotted with villa and
farm, village and homestead, the summer haze half veiling its loveli-
ness, as if trying to fuse into one glorious expanse of colour the
smiling earth and the slumbering sea beyond.

All this rose before him in its magic beauty, awakening a thousand
memories in his heart, filling his eyes with sweet unbidden tears, and
utterly blotting out the dank fields and dripping hedges with the
lowering grey above them.

A woman had joined the man and child, and was now trying to
set fire to the half-decayed heap of potato tops. The smoke rose
thick, and then slowly spread itself into a canopy, ever widening, yet
never rising.

Carlo's vision changed.

An autumn day amid his own bright hills — the song of the vintage
echoing from slope to slope, the sunshine gilding the exuberant wealth
of deepening vineleaf and luscious cluster, flushing with yet richer hue
the purple and amber berries amid their glory of many-tinted foliage.
One day in particular rose to his remembrance.

He and Angelo had gone up to the chestnut woods, and there, in
the hollow of a rock, they, too, had kindled a fire — a fire fragrant and

The Tower by the Sea. 393

flashing, fed with fir-cone and myrtle-branch, bursting out into sudden
blaze with quick sharp report like a salvo of glad welcome, flinging up
tiny weaths of perfumed smoke into the blue overhead, higher and
. higher, till lost to sight and scent in the breezy brightness around.

And there they lay amid the thick aromatic herbs, flowering shrubs
around them, a cloudless sky above, and miles of some of Nature's
loveliest scenery stretching away into the dreamy distance below.

How they enjoyed breaking the scarcely-ripe chestnut from its
thorny husk and laying it to roast amid the crisp brittle embers !
The familiar aroma rose to his nostrils, the taste to his palate ; he
seemed to hear the scream of the falcon from the beetling rocks over-
head, and see the shimmer of the sea lying blue and golden in the
distance. They had talked so much about their possible and probable
future up there among those breezy heights — the large white butterflies
fluttering idly from flower to flower — from the flaunting yellow ever-
lastings to the lilac asters — leaving the bee, wiser in her generation,
to banquet amid the tufts of fragrant thyme and bushes of aromatic
purple heath.

The very tones of Angelo's young voice and the gleam of his dark
eyes surged up with the freshness of yesterday.

Their mother had died shortly after Angelo's birth, and their father,
a tolerably well-to-do small proprietor and farmer, had never married
again. He had wished, and had done all he could, to bring up his
sons to be tillers of the soil like himself, and for a certain time, and
to a certain extent, they had followed in his steps.

But a stronger voice than his had lured them on to another path —
a voice within, whose imperative whisper bade them break into song
while they should have been intent on more material things — plunge
into dreams, when they should have united their efforts to those of
the busy, active circle around them.

Old Don Bernardo, their mother's brother and their only living
relative, had done much towards bringing about this revolution of
affairs, to which, after some years of spasmodic struggle, their father
finally grew reconciled.

Don Bernardo was the parish priest of a near village, and, like his
nephews, had been blest with an inborn love of music. Good, serene
old soul, he had ever done his best to push forward his two " sons,"
as he loved to call them, upon the path which he felt assured they
were called upon to tread.

It was he who arranged and paid for the lessons given them by the
old-fashioned organist of the place ; and when Carlo was judged to
be fitted and ready, it was he who, at his own expense, sent him to
Lucca to study under the first masters that that most musical of
cities could offer. Thanks to their care, and his own talent and
perseverance. Carlo became a thorough musician, learned in every
resource of the art, and able to give, in his turn, such piano lessons
as made him eagerly sought after by all who had sons and daughters

394 T^^ Tower by the Sea.

ambitious of distinguishing themselves upon that much-abused
instrument.

Lucca did not hold him long. An English family wintering in
Tuscany carried him off on their return to England, and there Carlo
gradually made for himself a thoroughly solid, almost brilliant,
position in that most bewildering of all modern Babylons — London.
While there, his father died. Then the farm was let, and, shortly
afterwards, Angelo, always by Don Bernardo's care, was sent to the
Conservatory at Milan.

If Carlo had somewhat disappointed his uncle's expectations, Angelo
more than fulfilled them. Before many months were over, he was
declared by all his masters to be of the stuff of which the Bellinis and
Mercadantes are made. The wealth of melody that flowed from the
soul of that pale, dark-eyed lad was such as to awake wonder in the
many who listened, and untold feeling in the few who were able to
appreciate and understand.

His studies drew to a close, and before long he would join his
brother in London, settle down there with him and his bride, and
then set about ordering the countless and wearisome preliminaries
attendant upon securing a fair and public execution of a first musical
work.

Don Bernardo was dead, and had left his little fortune equally
divided between the brothers — " 2in bel gruzzoio,^^ as the Italians say,
in money, a crazy old tower and a few roods of barren land somewhere
down by the sea.

Good, simple old Don Bernardo ! He was now, doubtlessly,
enjoying in a purer world those melodies with which his earthly career
had ever been haunted.

The brothers were now alone in the world, with none to cling
to save each other, and in his heart of hearts Angelo felt sorely
wounded at the thought that Carlo had been able to admit a third
into the holy bond that united them. He had never known his
mother, and all the love that would have been his had been supplied
by that of his brother ; all the love that would have been hers, had she
lived, had been lavished upon Carlo. Carlo was everything to him.

" Carlo," Angelo had said to him up there that day upon those
breezy heights, " I feel that if any one were ever to do you a great
wrong, I would tear his very heart out of him."

These words seemed to ring out once more upon Carlo's ear as he
stood there in that bay window looking forth upon the dreary land-
scape. They surged up from the depths of memory with a strange
clearness, and in his heart he felt and acknowledged that the man of
to-day would surely keep the promise of that long past moment,
should the need of so doing ever present itself.

At this moment the door opened, and Catherine entered the room.
She crossed over to where her betrothed was standing and took
her place in the window beside him.

1

I

The Tower by the Sea. 395

" Why, how bright you are looking, my Catherine," said Carlo,
gazing at her with fond admiration ; " what has happened to bring
that colour to your cheek, and that extra light to your eye ? "

" Oh — but you'll only laugh if I tell you ! "

Carlo shook his head deprecatingly.

"Well then — but it's no great thing, after all, you know — only
something that's been puzzling mamma and myself for the last fort-
night."

" Well, but what was it, dear ? "

" Why, the new tenants of next door must have arrived. Though
when, or how, we cannot guess. I'm sure we've kept a good lookout,
both of us. Probably they came ever so early this morning. The

windows are all open — and There, I declare, there's a cab

drawing up at the gate ; some of the new people, certainly."

" Most likely."

" Well, they can't be anything very great, after all, for the villa is
let furnished. Bah, nothing but an old gentleman ! How provoking ! "

" Not so very old either — and — I am sure I know his face. Stay
— where can I have seen it ? Ah, now I remember ! at Lady Tracy's
concert, where my Catterina carried off the palm all undisputed,
though it was her debut. ^"^

At this instant the elderly gentleman glanced over at the bay
window of the neighbouring villa while mounting the steps to the
door of his own, took off his hat, bowed slightly, and then disappeared
within the doorway.

Not a suspicion, nor any definitely uncomfortable thought dis-
turbed Carlo's mind at the moment ; but when, an hour or so later,
he was steaming back to London, he certainly did take a leaf out of
his future mother-in-law's book and set about puzzling his brains as to
what could possibly have induced an elderly gentleman of the new
tenant's air and apparent importance to have taken a furnished,
semi-detached villa at Elling, and precisely at the time when fogs and
bronchitis might reasonably be expected to put in their joint and
unwelcome appearance.

IL

Two-thirds, at least, of that portion of the inhabitants of London
called " the world " were there ; for Stanley House was one to which
people gladly flocked, even when there was nothing particular to
allure them, while on this especial night there was more than enough
to awaken curiosity and quicken the tongues of even the most
indifferent of the upper ten thousand.

The rooms presented their usual appearance. Light and flowers,
gilding and velvet ; the great gallery with its statues gleaming forth
whitely from amid orange boughs and palms ; music, warmth and
perfume ; costly dresses and glittering jewels, the hum of well-bred

39^ The Tower by the Sea.

voices, and the soft ripple of low and pleasant laughter. All these
were there, stamping the assembly at Stanley House among the most
hospitable and splendid of the season.

A pleasant-looking little duchess in blue velvet and diamonds was
sitting beside another very plainly-dressed lady upon a tete-a-tete^ and
the position they occupied gave them the advantage of commanding
the entrance of all those who passed to get to the inner reception
rooms.

" Now, please, tell me who this Lady Stormington is, about whom
every one is talking," said the one in plain pearl-grey silk to her
companion.

" My dear, you are perhaps the only woman in all London who
would venture upon such a question — who could venture upon it
without running the risk of being stared at. Not know who Lady

Stormington is ? Now, if you had asked who she zvas "

The smooth white shoulders rose in something very like a shrug,
while her Grace's pretty mouth was momentarily drawn down at the
corners. For much of her life had been passed abroad, and she had
brought with her across the channel more than one of the little social
peculiarities of our neighbours.

" Well, you know that I only arrived from Canada a few hours ago,
I may say, so you must pardon my ignorance and answer my question.
If you can't tell me who she ivas^ tell me at least who she is. I
never cared very much about groping back into people's past."

" And there you are quite right ; it is sometimes unpleasant for
both parties."

" Lady Stormington then ? "

" Is a viscountess with a husband of sixty — she must be under
twenty — four thousand a year settled upon her, and with every
prospect of waking up one morning to find herself a countess. The
Earl of Rockingham, you know, is nearly ninety years old."
" No bad prospect either."

" I should think not. Why she would have been on the stage by
this time if Stormington hadn't fallen in love with her and married
her all in a moment, as you may say."
" Indeed ! "

" Not, you know, that there was ever anything to be said against
her. It is true that her mother was poor and lived at Elling when
her beauty and her voice made a captive of old Stormington. He
first met her at Lady Tracy's, fell in love with her, and determined to
marry her."

" She is really so very beautiful, then ? "

" She is indeed."

" And her voice ? "

" One of the loveliest ever heard, they say. I am so glad of the

opportunity of hearing her to-night. I could not Ah, there

she is ! "

The Tower by the Sea. 397

A vision of loveliness appeared upon the threshold. Seldom indeed
had that high white and gold doorway framed a more bewitching
picture than that which now presented itself. Radiant in youthful
beauty, robed in costly lace and pale blue turquoises in her hair
and on her snowy neck, Lady Stormington paused for a second as if
abashed at finding herself thus vis-a-vis that crowd of eager, admiring
faces. On her husband, however, whispering a word of evident
encouragement — she was leaning upon his arm — she at once moved
forward with quiet grace and took her seat not very far from where
the little duchess and her friend from Canada were sitting.

" She is really lovely," murmured the latter. " I no longer wonder
at Lord Stormington's marrying her."

" Well, I hope he may not live to regret it. He might be her
grandfather, you know."

" I have no doubt he much prefers being what he is," whispered
the duke, who had just come up and was trying to squeeze himself
into position behind his wife's seat among a thicket of camellias.
The manoeuvre succeeded, and, once comfortably ensconced, he bent
forward over the two ladies.

" Stormington's a lucky fellow, and there are few men who would
not be glad to change places with him."

" You among the number, perhaps," said the duchess, with a laugh,
and looking up at her husband as she spoke. The reply was a glance
such as would quickly have set any doubt at rest, had room for doubt
ever existed.

Conversation flowed into other channels, and after a while the
flux and reflux invariable to all crowded assemblies had carried the
duchess and her friend into the neighbourhood of the Broadwood
grand which stood at the end of the next saloon but one. They
seated themselves upon an ottoman, there to await the great event
of the evening.

Two gentlemen, evidently professionals, were leaning against the
instrument immediately on their left. They could not thus avoid
hearing the conversation carried on by them in French.

" Poor de Sanctis, indeed ! Who would ever have thought of his
coming to such an end ? "

" Who, indeed ? But then there was always something queer about
him."

" Queer ? No — sad, if you will. There was undoubtedly a vein
of deep melancholy running through his character ; though, for that
matter, I should never have thought of its leading to such a deed."
" Morphine, was it not ? "

" Yes. But, to judge from his face, he must have suffered horribly.
Bah ! beautiful as she is, she is not worth putting an end to one's life
for. Do you think so ? "

" Certainly I do not. No woman ever was — as far as I have seen."
" Of course she knows all about it ? "

39^ The Tower hy the Sea.

" I daresay she does, though she was on her wedding-tour when it
happened. If she could throw him over, as she did, in that heartless
way just at the very last, you may be sure his death would not affect
her very deeply. I shouldn't wonder if she did not feel flattered even
at his committing suicide out of despair, for love of her. Why, she
let him dream on his fool's dream quite to the very last, and it was
only a day or so before the younger brother's arrival that she declared
off. And he, as you know, was expected just in time for the wedding."

" She seems to have been determined not to give up the teacher till
she had made sure of the title."

"Poor de Sanctis! He was no bad artist, either, though not to
be compared with his brother."

" So I have heard. What has become of the brother, by the way ? "

" Nobody seems to know exactly. He was quite prostrated by
grief — not loud, you know, but silent and brooding. It appears that
he went off immediately after the funeral, nobody knows whither."

" Back to Italy, I suppose ? "

" Most likely. Everything was sold off."

" Ah ! I wish I had known that. I should like to have bought
some little souvenir of de Sanctis. I did not "

" Hush ! — here she comes. Well, she does not look as if she had
kept any particular souvenir of the man whom her faithlessness hurried
to an untimely grave."

Here the last speaker commenced hastily pulling off his gloves, for
it was he who was to accompany Lady Stormington, who was being
led to the piano by her host. And in the wonderful voice and stream
of rich melody that rose upon the air, and echoed through the rooms,
the enchanted listeners forgot that Lady Stormington had not been
born within their magic circle.

III.

Three years have passed away.

A lady in deep mourning, followed by another also in black, has
stepped out of a first-class railway-carriage at a little station between
Spezia and Sestri Levante. Her two servants are already upon the
platform, mounting guard over a pile of trunks and minor luggage.
A simple and somewhat old-fashioned carriage, with a pair of stout
horses and an exceedingly bronzed driver, are visible on the other
side of the low railing that divides the railway premises from the dusty
high-road.

The station-master advances, cap in hand — interchanges a few sen-
tences in Italian with the younger of the ladies, opens the little wicket
with his own hands to let her and her suite pass out, helps her and
her companion into the vehicle, reaching after them a bundle of
umbrellas and rugs, shuts to the door with a slam, then draws back a
step and makes a second bow, more profound even than the first.

The Tower by the Sea. 399

The copper-faced driver whips up his horses and away goes the
equipage, flinging right and left thick clouds of white, swirling dust,
which, after hovering awhile, finally settles upon the unhappy ilex
trees with which the road is bordered.

The sun is rapidly sinking and has quite gone down before the
carriage has worked its way up to the top of the heights. There is
a warm flush of purple and gold over earth, sea and sky; then a
gradual fading into grey, accompanied by a sudden chill. Then the
stars gleam out one by one from the cloudless, solemn sky overhead,
and by their soft and soothing light the travellers reach the long, low
habitation to which they are bound.

" What a lovely place ! " was the younger lady's exclamation as, the
next morning, she stepped out on to the balcony upon which the three
windows of her bedroom opened.

And lovely indeed it was. A long, low villa built of dark red
brick and perched upon the very extremity of a bold promontory, at
whose base the Mediterranean beat in ceaseless, soothing flow. On
one side a long range of garden and orchard terraced down to the very
beach, the whole backed by a dark pine-wood, with which the spur
of the Apennines on which the property lay was thickly clad.

To the left a tiny bay, with its shore of smooth white sand and its
pretty bathing-house ; to the right, and at but a very short distance,
a second smaller promontory, crowned by an old, half-ruined tower
and a cluster of low out-buildings. The evident decay of the place
and the aridity of the rocky waste around it, forming a striking con-
trast to the carefully-kept villa and its wealth of gardens and exuberant
vegetation.

In front spread the broad expanse of blue waters, with here and
there a white sail gleaming faintly in the dreamy distance.

There was nothing between the facade of the villa and the edge of
the precipice upon which it stood, save a broad terrace cut in the
living rock, and protected by a marble balustrade ornamented with
large vases filled with flowering plants.

The dark red face of the cliff itself bristled with aloes, and out
of the bold clefts numberless oleanders flung their lithe branches.
There was an air of solitude and retirement over the whole place, but
quite unmingled with anything like loneliness or melancholy. How
could it be lonely with blue sky and sunshine, rippling waters and
blooming plants, light and perfume, with the isong of the wild bird
floating forth from groves of tufted orange and ilex, with the hum of
the bee amid the flowers, with the mazy dance of the yellow butterfly
in the pure, warm air? There was everything conducive to peace
and repose : nothing to awaken or recall sadness or grief.

Catherine — Tady Stormington no longer, but Countess of Rocking-
ham ; her father-in-law having died just three weeks before her
husband — seated herself upon one of the broad marble steps leading
to the gardens below, and, head leant upon hand, gazed out upon the

400 The Tower by the Sea.

scene before her. The flickering shadows of a large grass plant in
the vase above her fell softly upon and around her.

How peaceful was everything on earth, sea and sky !

The folds of her black dress, which lay broad and sweeping upon
the gleaming white of the marble, and the cloud upon her brow were
the only dark things visible in all that serene and sunny landscape.

The tepid air, too, was growing heavy with the perfume of the
flowers with which, from time to time, the acrid odour of brine
mingled. The weary void which, since some time, had been making
itself felt in Catherine's heart, seemed suddenly to increase strangely
as she sat there amid all that wealth of exulting nature.

" Life is but a heavy burden, after all," she murmured to herself.
And then she went on pondering as to how it was possible to feel
discontented and sad as she did with so much at her command, when,
but a year or two ago, one fiftieth part of what was now hers would
have been too wild to have even dreamed of.

" Kate — Kate," cried a voice from the house, " how can you sit
out in the broiling sun in that manner ? And without a parasol, too.
You'll ruin your complexion."

Mrs. Mellicott vanished from the window only to reappear almost
immediately upon the terrace with a sunshade in one hand and an
enormous black straw hat in the other.

" There, my love," said she, crossing to where her daughter was
sitting and depositing both the articles in her lap ; " these will protect
you a little — though, if you would follow my advice, you wouldn't
stir out of doors with the sun blazing down out of the sky like this.
Dear me, how much pleasanter it would be if there were only a few
clouds about ! Do come in, my dear ; the house is perfectly charming.
I've been all over it, and some of the rooms are really splendid."

" I'm sure I'm glad you like it, mother ; only don't ask me to go
indoors — I seem to breathe so much freer out here."

" The rooms have been well-aired, I can assure you : there's not
the sign of stuffiness in any of them. The great salon in the middle
there is absolutely perfect, though there are some terribly scandalous
pictures upon the ceiling. I'm sure I don't know what we can
do with them. I've been puzzling my brains to make out a way
of veiling them. And then there's a vase upon the staircase — it's
quite outrageous ! What can we do when the people begin to call
upon us ? "

" I'm not sure that there are any people in the neighbourhood,
mother ; and if there are, I hope they will keep away and not come
disturbing us ? "

" Disturb us ! Why, my dear, you don't mean — "

" Yes ; disturb us. We are here for your health, mamma, and a
little, perhaps, for my own — and I won't have you worried with
visitors."

" Oh, just a friend or two — people of our rank, you know — to an

The Tower by the Sea, 401

occasional quiet little dinner and a pleasant evening. I do so hope
you'll get a piano. It's my duty, you know, to help you to keep up
your position."

The words were as well meant as they were ill chosen. A deeper
cloud passed over Catherine's features, and she rose from her seat.

" I wonder what's in that dismal old tower down there ? " said Mrs.
Mellicott, shading her eyes with one hand so as to obtain a better
view ; "it looks just the very place for bandits ; I see, by the way,
that all our lower windows are fitted with iron bars. I suppose it is
necessary, but it looks queer ; we shall have to get used to it. But
I am not "

" Of course we shall, mother. Here comes Cesare."

" Yes — that dreadful servant. He would persist in talking his
gibberish to me this morning. What does he want now ? "

He came to say that breakfast was ready, and Mrs. Mellicott
followed her daughter into the house.

* * * * itt m

Weeks wore on quite uneventfully : outwardly, at least.

To the elder lady's great disgust, not a visitor had put in an appear-
ance at the villa, and the peasants and others immediately around
them seemed in no wise impressed with the fact of her daughter's
being Countess of Rockingham. On the whole, therefore, Mrs.
Mellicott's powers were not heavily taxed in "keeping up their
position."

The weather had set in intensely hot, and the ladies, after returning
from their morning bath, generally kept indoors until evening came
on. They then sat out upon the terrace and watched the stars peep
out one by one to mirror themselves in the broad blue expanse below.

A curious thing had taken place, however. A sort of weary rest-
lessness had laid hold of Lady Rockingham, leaving her neither peace
nor repose, save in such time as she passed there upon that terrace ;
and when there, her eyes would fix themselves as if fascinated upon
the old ruined tower on the opposite promontory with an unconquer-
able obstinacy for which she could in no wise account.

The doctor said that the restlessness was a first effect of the sea
air, to which she was unused, and that it would soon wear off; and
Miladi was fain to accept his solution as the true one, even against
her own better judgment.

One evening they were sitting as usual on the terrace, worn and
weakened by the heat which had that day been unusually oppressive.
A sort of lassitude seemed to have extended itself over the animals
and plants, for the former remained silent in their leafy retreats, while
the latter hung their heads towards mother earth as if vainly seeking
from her refreshment in their weariness.

The moon had just set behind the pine-clad ridge, the stars shim-
mered down from the blue overhead, and responsive shimmers gleamed
upwards from the broad bosom of the slumbering waters ; the fireflies

VOL. Liv. 2 B

402 The Tower hy the Sea.

danced amid the orange boughs, the breath of the gardenia floated
heavily upon the night ; not a sound was heard save the measured
swish of the sleepy tide below.

Even Mrs. Mellicott seemed to feel the mysterious influence, for
her tongue, usually so active, remained mute, and she sat there fol-
lowing the fireflies' flight, as they broke from out the gloom of the
foliage to flash for a moment and then once more disappear.

Suddenly there broke upon the breathless night a flood of harmony
so wild and wonderful as to make the hearts of both beat quickly,
while Catherine's eyes filled with unbidden tears, and a strange shiver
ran through her whole frame.

The sounds flowed on unbroken — waves wild and eccentric — now
soaring into a strain such as angels might have rejoiced in — now
sinking into a chaos of chords more like the wail of a band of lost
souls than any music produced by mortal hand.

" Good gracious, Kate, whatever can it be ? " whispered Mrs. Melli-
cott, on the performance coming to a sudden and unexpected end.
Where does it come from ? "

" From the old tower over there. It is evidently an organ, and —
yes, if you look steadily, you will see a faint light in one of the upper
windows."

She shivered as she spoke and gazed, and mechanically drew a
flimsy shawl around her.

" But who lives there ? Can any one live in such a disreputable-
looking sort of a place ? "

" Yes ; a poor, half-witted man, so Cesare told me, whose name
nobody seems to know. He has been living there off and on for
months, and came no one knows whence."

" Who can he be ? "

" The peasants seemed to say that he is a priest ; but I don't quite
remember. He is certainly a splendid musician."

" He might play in Christian hours, and not try to frighten his
betters out of their wits with his musical whims. I feel creepy all
over ! "

So did Lady Rockingham, but she said nothing about what she felt.
It was something all too strange to speak of, and, besides, her mother
would never have been able to understand her.

" There — he's off again, I declare ! "

Once more the weird strain broke upon the listening night, to float
in myriad voices through the darkness — calling, jeering, praying, con-
juring— every human passion, good and bad, seeming to find its
interpreter in the strange medley of the terrible and the grotesque, the
plaintive and the defiant ; the leaping forth into warm life, the sudden
sinking into chill death.

But it did not last long, only once more rose again into the former
soaring melody that seemed as if it must be bearing upwards the entire
soul of the player upon its mighty pinions.

The Tower by the Sea, 403

Its effect was strange upon Catherine. A wild yearning urged her
to join her voice with the soaring sound, but a stronger power forbade
her doing so. More than once she opened her parched Hps, but no
note could she bring forth ; a convulsive shudder mastered her whole
frame, and she sank faint and fearing upon the seat from which, in
her eagerness, she had risen.

The music ceased abruptly. It seemed to Catherine to be followed
by a cry — a cry of sharp anguish such as a bird would utter if roused
from its dream of sunshine and roses to find itself in the cruel clutch
of the night-prowler.

Mrs. Mellicott had heard no cry, and, though her daughter strain-
ingly listened for it to be repeated, nothing more was heard save the
monotonous swish-swash of the waves below as they crept up to die
upon the white sand.

Soon after, the light, too, vanished from the tower window. Lady
Rockingham gave a sigh of relief; she herself could not have told
why. The darkness seemed to have increased, and she felt a sudden
desire to quit the spot. The lamp-light streaming out from the
windows of the salon looked cheerful and inviting. She rose to go
indoors.

Phantom music seemed to be floating around her — unsummoned
spirits to be hovering amid the gloom. No wonder, then, that, with-
out knowing why, she echoed the shrill scream uttered by Mrs.
Mellicott, who, clutching at her daughter's arm, cried out : " There,
Catherine, there — behind you ! "

She pointed to the cluster of magnolias. Catherine turned. There,
gleaming out from the dark foliage, were two eyes, fixed and fiery,
never blinking, but staring as if to transfix the affrighted women
with their gaze.

Neither moved, and Catherine's blood ran cold. Happily, at the
same moment, Cesare came up ; he had heard the cry through the
widely-opened windows of the saloon where he was preparing tea, and
hurried out to see what was the matter.

" There is somebody among the bushes there ! " whispered Lady
Rockingham, on his coming up ; while Mrs. Mellicott seized hold of
his arm in a way that showed how dismay could, on occasion, scare
away dignity.

" Impossible ! " replied the man ; but, almost ere he could utter the
word, he too caught sight of the glittering orbs.

Then from out the magnolias followed a sharp, snapping sound,
not unlike the cocking of a pistol, only reiterated a dozen times or
more, and mingled with strange guttural mutterings and a rustling
amid the leaves. Cesare, too, began to feel weak about the knees ;
and who knows how the scene might have ended, had not the boughs
suddenly parted, and an enormous horned owl soared forth and, with
a loud, long-drawn cry, floated away over the heads of the spell-bound
gazers to vanish into the surrounding gloom.

2 B 2

404 The Tower by the Sea.

Impressioned as she had been by the mysterious music, it was only
natural that Lady Rockingham should be extremely anxious to learn
something more definite about the musician. But she was able to
gather little or nothing.

For weeks at a stretch nothing would be either seen or heard at the
tower; and then, suddenly, some night, when the night-fishers were
out in itheir boats, would the strange, wild music come floating over
the waters, and the faint yellow gleam would be visible in one of the
upper windows of the lonely ruin. Not knowing by what name to
call him, the people had christened him " il Frate " — either from the
fact of the former owner of the tower having been a priest, or, more
probably, perhaps, from his lonely and unsocial mode of life. For he
wore no monastic garb — only plain black clothes, utterly shabby and
wholly uncared for. From time to time he would make his appearance
among the country people, buying from them such coarse provisions
as they could supply, and which he, with his own hands, always took
from the bearers at the gate of the little court with which his dilapi-
dated tower was surrounded on three sides. The fourth side of the
tower stood on the sheer edge of the precipice upon which it was built,
and a line let down from the broken battlements would have fallen
amid the breakers and the jagged rocks below.

Within the precincts of the place none were ever allowed to
penetrate. The " Frate " avoided all intercourse except the most
unavoidable, but was civil and soft-spoken to those with whom he
was forced to speak. He was evidently not poor ; nay, in the eyes
of the good peasants he passed for rich, for he had had an organ
brought from Lucca and set up in the tower — an organ reported to
have cost a large sum by the men who brought it over and erected it.

Only one particularly strange circumstance had been remarked ;
whenever he happened to meet a woman, he would turn sharply out
of his way, and, on doing so, had been heard more than once to
mutter strangely to himself. This same fact might, possibly, have
aided in the bestowal of the title of "Frate "; though, as more than
one would remark, " there were few among the real clergy that led
so exemplary a life as did the recluse of that solitary tower." In
short, he was well-spoken of by all, and the liberality he was ever
ready to show to the needy, amply made up in the public opinion for
the chariness of his words.

Mrs. Mellicott, after " puzzling her brains " over the mysterious
music and yet more mysterious musician for a while, ended by getting
tired of the whole question. She hardly forgot the adventure with
the owl quite so readily.

But she had her own health to attend to, to regulate all the
especial minutiae of her baths and diet, as laid down by a medical
celebrity summoned over from Sarzano for that particular purpose ;
and all this, joined to the arrival of a box of fashionable novels and
the latest crewel patterns, effectually did the business. The good

The Tower by the Sea. 405

lady sank gently into a routine of life which, as far as case and luxury
were concerned, left nothing to be desired.

Catherine, on the contrary, grew more and more restless, and
appeared to be utterly incapable of interesting herself in anything.
Without herself knowing why, she would spend long hours gazing
across the narrow ravine at the tower beyond, with a vague yearning
in her heart to catch but a momentary glimpse of its unknown
occupant.

But no token or sign did she ever see — only at rare intervals did
the sickly yellow light show itself at the upper window — nor since that
first wondrous night had the unearthly music ever made itself heard.

One morning Catherine had risen somewhat earlier than usual,
after passing a feverish, sleepless night. Listless and even more
dispirited than usual, she had with difficulty got through two-thirds of
the long summer's day, and had gone out upon the terrace, as was
her wont, to take her place under the grateful shade of the broad-
boughed magnolia. The oppression, moral and physical, which she
was suffering under were all but unbearable.

Mrs. Mellicott had retired to her rooms with a headache and a
sensational novel.

A pile of heavy white cloud was slowly welling up upon the
horizon, blotting out with stealthy pace the intense blue of the sky.
At long intervals the faint roll of distant thunder made itself heard,
but as yet, no breath stirred either blossom or bough. The cigala
drummed forth her weary, monotonous music with ceaseless energy,
uninterrupted by any other sound. She had it all her own way, and
was seemingly making the most of it.

Lady Rockingham gazed longingly down at the cool blue waters
below, the heaving was so subdued and gentle as to leave not even
the tiniest fringe of silver upon the sands they kissed. Then again
she fixed her eyes upon the tower-crowned ridge, and a curious
impulse urged her to try and trace the eccentric path which led
upwards from the strand. She tried again and again. Impossible !
Rock and shrub, ridge and hollow, seemed to take a malicious
pleasure in baffling her.

Then, with a sudden impulse, she rose from her seat and hastily
began to descend the broad marble steps. Down, down, down,
crossing terrace after terrace till, at length, she reached the little gate
opening upon the rocky strand.

Out among the masses of dark rock with which it was encumbered
— masses thundered down from the cliffs overhead in times gone by,
and now strewn amid the chaos of wave-worn stone and boulder, that
the sea in its moment of fury, had cast forth from its breast. Away
across them all, her delicate feet heedless of the roughness of the
ground over which she sped, impelled onwards by a will which seemed
to reach her from without, and which she felt every moment less able
to resist.

4o6 The Tower by the Sea,

She was soon amid the stunted brushwood, and there lay the path
before her. Now through thickets of myrtle and juniper — now losing
itself in a bed of thyme ; here winding around a gigantic rock —
there dipping gently across a miniature ravine in which the coarse
grass grew thickly, and from whose water-worn sides the broom and
heath sprang. On, on, on, ever mounting, flushed and breathless, her
limbs aching wearily, yet the nameless impulse ever hurrying her
onwards.

With panting breast, and with a strange wild glitter in her eyes, she
at last reached the summit, and halted upon the narrow platform
upon which the tower stood. No entrance to the little yard was to
be seen, so she skirted the corner with a strange feeling of having
been there before, and stopped in front of the low wicket gate.
Without a second's hesitation she pushed it open and entered. Deso-
lation on every hand — an overgrowth of rank, poisonous-looking
weeds, across which human footsteps, but not human industry, had
frayed a species of path. Catherine traversed the enclosure with swift
step — the unseen influence making itself more and more powerfully
felt with every second that elapsed.

She entered the tower.

A large square room, all unfurnished save by a rude stool at the
side of the ash-encumbered hearth, and a coarse plate or two upon
the stone mantel-shelf above. The light streamed in through the
open doorway, making the discomfort and desolation around only the
more apparent. In the further corner, a flight of stone stairs leading
to the floor above.

Urged on by the same imperious impulse. Lady Rockingham
crossed the unswept stone pavement, and noiselessly mounted. She
found herself in a room the exact counterpart of the one below, with a
similar staircase leading to the storey above. But there was no
chimney, and in its place stood an organ. There was a ^vretched bed,
too, in one corner, a couple of chairs, and, in the centre, a massive
table covered with sheets of manuscript music.

At this table, his face buried in his hands, sat a man. In obe-
dience to the hidden power which had now taken complete possession
of her. Lady Rockingham, her eyes fixed upon the being before her,
stepped close up to the table and rested her frail, white hands upon
its rough and dusty edge.

Here she paused, gazing mutely and expectantly.

Her golden hair had escaped from its confinement and flowed in
a now tangled mass down upon her shoulders and on to her dark
dress — her bosom was heaving with the unwonted exertion, and her
azure eyes were riveted more and more fixedly upon the bowed head
and the black, grey-streaked locks before her.

Her features expressed neither wonder nor embarrassment — a
power unspeakably stronger than her own will was swaying every
motion. She could only gaze and wait.

The Tower by the Sea. 407

Minutes rolled on — though she could not have told if they were
seconds or centuries. Neither stirred. No sound broke the silence
save the heavy breathing of the man within, and the fitful growl of the
thunder without. She saw and marked everything : but it was as if
she had been a third and indifferent person, a careless looker-on, and
not herself in any sense of the term.

A ray of sunshine suddenly broke through the window and, falling
full upon her head, enveloped it in a halo of glory. At the same
instant the man raised his head, and his wild dark eyes met the full
and silent gaze of his victim.

But there was neither surprise on his face, nor tremor in his voice,
as, after a moment's pause, he said : " Ah, you have come at last, have
you ? " There was nothing either in word or tone to terrify ; yet, on
hearing his voice, a shiver ran through Lady Rockingham's whole
form. Her face grew pale as death. The voice seemed like the
echo of one she had silenced for ever.

The two gazed on at each other, silent and motionless.

Once more the low roll of the thunder broke forth, rising from the
sea apparently, and rumbling slowly over their heads towards the
mountains. The sunny ray was suddenly blotted out and an ominous
gloom usurped its place.

" For I knew you would come, sooner or later," he repeated. " He
told me so."

He rose, and walked slowly round the table to where she was
standing. Her eyes followed his steps, but she still remained
motionless.

" Come — let me look at you well."

He drew her, with a sudden and almost brutal motion, aside to
wards the foot of the stairs leading to the roof above. Here the light
was somewhat clearer.

His long thin fingers clasped round her white, blue-veined wrist in
a grasp of steel. " I have passed many weary hours in trying to
picture to myself what you are like. Let me see if you are worth the
price he paid for you."

He closely scanned her form and features as he spoke, never for a
second relaxing the cruel grip in which he held her. She stood
passive as wax under his scrutiny.

" Yes — your face is an angel's ; your heart — your heart must be
that of a demon ! "

He flung her violently from him as he spoke. She reeled, and
would have fallen had not the rough stone wall behind saved her. A
crash of thunder burst immediately overhead, while at the same
instant a bright blue glare flashed with blinding intensity through the
gloom.

" Do you hear his voice ? He is crying aloud for vengeance —
vengeance upon you, his murderess — for all your golden hair and
azure eyes ! You lured him on to his ruin ; you broke the nobles

4o8 The Tower by the Sea.

heart that ever beat — yes, in very wantonness — stamped out the life of
him who worshipped you. You are in my power now — do you under-
stand ? — in ray power ! And I am Carlo de Sanctis' brother."

He was terrible to look upon, with his blazing eyes, as he gathered
himself together like a wild beast about to spring. Catherine closed
her eyes ; it was all that she could do, for the spell was upon her,
making her as clay in the hands of the potter.

The storm broke forth in earnest — crash following crash, gleam
leaping forth upon gleam, till the whole universe seemed to reel with
deafening roar and blinding glare. The warring of the elements
appeared to mock at the fury of the man.

Suddenly the maniac — for maniac he now certainly was — seized her
in his arms and, like a tiger carrying off his prey, bounded up the
narrow stair leading to the flat roof of the tower.

He sprang upon the crumbling battlement, holding his burden high
over his head with the strength of madness. Above, the raging tem-
pest ; below, the seething waters lashed into fury and leaping vainly
upwards as if eager to get at their promised prey. " Are you ready
to meet him ? " Angelo shouted hoarsely into her ear. The words
scarcely reached her, so terrible was the commingled din of the
elements. But she had guessed their purport. She shivered in his
grasp as a lamb shivers in the hands about to slay it.

" Hark to his call ! He is weary of waiting. I come, brother — I
come ; we are coming, both of us. Listen to the death-song." Then
he broke out into the same wild melody that had been heard floating
weirdly up from the spot upon which the maniac now bade her say
farewell to earthly life for ever.

The shrill notes rose to a shriek as they mingled with a thousand
voices of the contending sea and sky.

Suddenly he stopped, and the unhappy woman opened her eyes.
All around was enveloped in gloom. A blue flash lit up the scene
for an instant with its fierce glare. For an instant only, but long
enough to render visible a horrified group upon the terrace of the
villa, the arms wildly extended in the direction of the tower.

And amid those collected there stood a mother, impotent to save
her golden-haired child from the grasp of the madman.

Involuntarily Catherine turned away her gaze. It fell upon the
low doorway that gave access to the platform. There lay safety — life,
perhaps — respite at least ! Ah, could she but reach it ! But the long
wiry arms closed round her like hoops of steel, precluding all hope of
escape.

Yet still she gazed on, fixedly, as if she expected help to come
thence — gazed on as if hope were not already dead in her heart —
gazed on ^vithout even herself knowing why.

" Are you ready ? " shrieked Angelo once more. Receiving no
reply, he looked into her face. He followed the direction of her eyes.
Then a sudden shivering seized him ; an inarticulate sound issued

The Tower hy the Sea. 409

from his parted lips ; the pale face grew livid — the encircling arms
relaxed.

Catherine fell heavily against the battlement, while the maniac flung
himself wildly upon his knees.

There he knelt, his outstretched arms — the thin, steely fingers
widely extended — towards the low doorway.

" Brother," broke from him at last — " brother ! why — why do you
look at me like that ? Why do you frown ? Why do your eyes gleam
at me in anger ? "

Catherine gazed in spell-bound horror. She saw nought but the
low doorway ; but she shivered as do those who feel themselves in an
unseen presence.

" Brother ! brother ! " broke forth in a wailing shriek. " Look not
on me so — you scorch my very heart ; and I loved you so — I loved
you so ! Have pity, have pity ! "

He sank his head upon his breast for a moment and remained
silent, breathing convulsively, as one struggling for life. Catherine
durst not move. She felt that, had she done so, the man would have
leaped upon her like a leopard on its prey. There she stood motion-
less, almost breathless, trying vainly to calculate the time that must
elapse before aid could arrive.

The maniac lifted his head once more.

" Still there ! " he murmured. " And pitiless still ! Ah, your eyes,
your cruel, cruel eyes are piercing my brain like red-hot iron ! Ah,
have mercy, have mercy ! "

He flung himself forwards upon his face, then suddenly started
and looked up. " Brother ! brother ! " he shrieked. " Ah, do not
leave me thus ! One look of love — but one — for our dead mother's

sake — for the love of " He sprang up and staggered towards the

doorway. " For the love that — — "

He never finished the phrase. There was a rush of feet upon the
stairs, and the next moment Angelo was secured by the men from the
villa.

Lady Rockingham had fainted.

A long hospital ward, few patients occupying the long unbroken
line of white beds ; two " Sisters," however, grouped at the head of
the one at the further end of the apartment. One on her knees beside
it, the other bending over its occupant and wiping the gathering dews
from the clammy forehead.

" If the doctor would only come ! " she murmured.

Almost at the same instant he entered, followed by two attendants.
He walked straight up to the bed and bent for a second over the
patient, " Not an hour to live," he said, in reply to the Sister's mute
inquiry. " If the Signora Inglese does not come soon, she will be
too late."

410 The Tower by the Sea.

" She is always here by two," put in one of the men.

" It wants seven minutes," rejoined the doctor, after pulHng out and
consulting his watch.

" Poor fellow ! " sighed the Sister.

" Lucky fellow, rather ! " retorted the physician. " Is it not better
to go off quietly in a coma like that than to live on a maniac ? For
maniac he must have been. No man that was ever born could pull
through such a brain-fever and retain his senses."

" God's will be done ! " ejaculated the Sister.

The door opened, and a lady in black entered. Though young,
her hair was white as snow. The terrible moments passed in the
tower with the maniac, succeeded by hours of unconsciousness, had
wrought the change in her. Her expression was sad almost to
melancholy ; but there was a grave and subdued charm about it
never before seen there. It seemed to say that she had passed
through a furnace of affliction, and had done with the world and
its frivolities.

She, too, came straight up to the bed. Her passage was scarcely
noticed by the patients, so used had they become to her daily
visits.

" You are just in time, miladi," said the doctor.

The Sister who had been standing noticed a sudden change in the
patient's face. She read it aright, and, laying down sponge and towel,
sank upon her knees. Lady Rockingham followed her example.
The three men withdrew in silence. Twenty minutes later all was
over.

And thus began Catherine's hospital life, which many a sufferer has
had good and abundant cause to bless.

A. Beresford.

OCEANO NOX.
{Fro7n Victor Hugo.)

Alas ! alas ! how many mariners.
How many captains, starting joyously

Whilst not a breath the gentle billow stirs,
And not a sound disturbs the sleeping sea,

Lured on by cruel fortune wide and far.

Have vanished on a night that knew no star.

I

Oceano Nox. 411

And none may tell where lie the noble heads

Hurled on through endless space to unknown shore,

Lost on the trackless waste no footstep treads,
Through all the ages to return no more !

How many loving hearts have ceased to beat,

Whilst watching vainly for those wandering feet.

At times old comrades, round the cheerful blaze.
Will speak of you : some ancient tale retrace ;

And whilst they talk of old adventurous days,
The shades of death are lying on your face !

They join your names in laughter and in jest.

Whilst on your lips sea-wrack and mosses rest.

They ask " Where are they ? " jesting — " Are they kings
In isles of bliss ? " And then there comes a day

When you are quite forgot. Time's ruthless wings
Have swept the old familiar forms away.

Where falls a shadow — deeper shadows fall —

Oblivion hides you very soon from all.

All have their daily round — their work, their lives —
Only on some dark night with storms at sea.

Weary with waiting, white-haired widowed wives
Rake up the ashes of dead memory

From heart and hearth — and speak again with tears

Of those whose names had not been breathed for years.

And when their eyelids close, there will be none

To recollect — no willow tree will weep
Sad leaves — no name be writ on mossy stone,

On humble cross no ivy garland creep :
Nor e'en the beldam croon for those at sea
Her evening chaunt in dull monotony.

Where are they, sailors to the deep gone down?

Oh, you have direful secrets, cruel waves !
You whisper them when clouds of tempest frown,

And wives and mothers weep unhallowed graves.
Yours are the mournful voices that we hear
When tow'rds the shore by night our steps draw near.

C. E. Meetkerke.

412

THE HOTEL DU CHEVAL BLANC.

T T is not a picturesque building. The dwelling-house, a dirty grey
•^ in colour and flat-sided as a brick, runs along one side of the
courtyard ; on those at right angles to it, various sheds, barns and
other outhouses are irregularly disposed ; the fourth is bounded by a
high stone wall, over which the elms in the ducal park beyond lift
fragrant canopies of cool green leaves.

It is true that, as I see it, this unlovely spot is not without
redeeming graces. The glow of a continental summer envelops and
transfigures it. The dull grey and brown mass lies steeped in
sunlight filtered through an atmosphere clear and sparkling as crystal;
and over all arches, far beyond the scope of our island heaven, a
dome of the darkest and yet most brilliant blue. I feel the warm air
touch my face as I think of it, and I hear the voice of Madame Malet,
the landlady, calling across the yard to her son Victor, who is now at
play with the " English demoiselle."

The two children have taken possession of an empty waggon drawn
up on one side of the court. Victor, with a huge whip, w^hich he can
hardly lift, and strange guttural noises, in excellent imitation of the
local carters, is driving an imaginary team. Behind him sits the
English demoiselle, her blue eyes shining, her pink cheeks pinker
than usual with enjoyment of the expedition. She \nnds one arm
lovingly round the neck of Fido, the mongrel house-dog, who, all
unused to such blandishments, turns on his foreign friend, in mingled
gratitude and wonder, two moist, pathetic eyes.

" Of what are you thinking ? " screams Madame Malet, in a voice
as melodious as the cry of one of her own hens. " Are you, then,
mad to hold yourselves like that in the sunshine at the hour which
now is ? Do you desire to have a sunstroke ? Victor, arrive this
instant ! Mademoiselle, you wdll do yourself an injury. Come —
enter, both of you, and I will give you a galetteT

At the same instant, from the open window on the second floor, a very
smooth brown head is suddenly protruded, and a shrill voice calls out,
in accents which sound sharp and clipped after the foreign vocables —

" Miss Julia, come in this hinstant ! Whatever would your ma
say ? And do look at your dress ! "

The children, who have jumped down from the cart, run across the
yard and disappear into the house. Fido, who has jumped down
after them, stretches himself to slumber in the shade. The tinkling
of a piano floats out from the open window on the second floor. It
is " Mees Smeete " practising her scales with youthful energy, which
even the great heat does not exhaust. Until it abates, the rest of the
English lodgers are keeping very quiet, and towards evening will sally

The Hotel du Cheval Blanc. 413

forth in a body for one of those long rambles over hill and dale in
which they daily indulge.

Ah, what delightful [rambles these were through that fruitful
Norman land ! blooming with gardens, and orchards, and woodland,
and watered by bright streams gliding smoothly on, foaming impetu-
ously past the scattered mills and homesteads. The air grew cooler
and cooler as we wandered on ; the glowing pink above us faded into
grey ; sometimes the perfumed darkness of a summer's night gathered
over all things before we returned tired and hungry to the Cheval
Blanc ; too tired to be captious about the unadorned ugliness of our
dining-room, ill-lighted by two flickering candles, hungry enough to
sup with relish on artichokes, eggs, freshly-made gakttes^ and nice
milk served in an earthenware terrine about the size of an ordinary
English foot-bath.

One day in the week the drowsy calm of the courtyard was
dispersed by an inrush of noise and bustle from the market-place out-
side. Early in the morning the two-wheeled carts from all the villages
round came pouring into the town, each bearing its freight of blue-
smocked men and white-capped women. Then followed a great
unpacking of garden and dairy produce, and betimes the market-place
was fitted with stalls sheltered by canvas awnings, or gay umbrellas,
under which eggs, fowls, butter, cheese, vegetables and fruit were
temptingly outspread before the eyes of the townspeople.

The men congregated mostly round the sacks of corn, which were
ranged in rows before the Hotel de Ville, and a low deep hum came
from that quarter ; whereas, a very Babel of shrill vociferation seemed
to cleave the air above the stalls where the women chaffered over their
wares.

To the foreign observer, indeed, a good deal of time appeared
needlessly squandered over that duel of words which invariably
preceded the purchase of the smallest article ; but then on bright
summer mornings how pleasantly such time was wasted ! Even a
sober English buyer might well be tempted to argue the price of a
peach or an apple with a vendor as blooming as her rosy fruit. Most
Norman peasant women, young and middle-aged, are pleasant to look
upon ; erect, with well-set heads and oval faces, straight noses, and
fine dark eyes steadily surveying you from under thoughtful brows.
Such comeliness is very well set off by a diadem of snowy muslin and
crisp white lace, and the long gold pendants which have drooped from
the ears of successive generations.

On market mornings there was an almost unceasing rattle of wheels
and hoofs under the low archway which led from the " Place " to the
courtyard of the Cheval Blanc, and by mid-day it was quite blocked
by row after row of empty spring-carts. The male owners thereof all
dined more or less noisily in the big kitchen, or in very warm weather
in a large open shed, made beautiful for the occasion with green
boughs, and surnamed " la salle verteP

414 The Hotel du Cheval Blanc.

Then would Madame Malet, in her role of hostess, shine to full
advantage — or disadvantage. The tones of her voice encouraging
her guests, or rallying her maids, filled the courtyard with discordant
echoes. She was here, there, and everywhere, distributing smoking
dishes of soup and douilli, huge jugs of sour cider, and even at times
jests as heavy as her tread.

Her husband's less conscious part was to sit at the head of the
dinner-table, and set the convives a good example in the way of
eating and drinking — a task which he fulfilled with his usual placidity.
A fat dark man, with a kindly face and sleepily gentle manner, he
was in demeanour as in disposition the opposite of his wife ; fortunately
so, or life at the Cheval Blanc might have been unendurable. Not
that poor Madame IVIalet was in reality a shrew. All this sound
and fury signified nothing but the effervescence of an excitable
temperament.

She was a big, clumsy, fair — or, lest I be utterly misunderstood, let
me say blonde — woman, with a large nose, and great loosely-hanging
lips. A kindly gleam would often lighten her pale blue eyes, generally
clouded by a Martha-like anxiety about household matters, and a
joyless view of life in general. At one time she had so far mistaken
her vocation as to aspire to be a sick-nurse at the Hotel-Dieu, but
M. Malet's intervention had fortunately altered a resolution so un-
favourable to the inmates of that establishment. Yet Madame Malet
had a tender heart for the sick and the weak. I can see her now
standing in the most ungraceful of attitudes beside our dinner-table
on the days when the 7nenu included a freshly-roasted joint, thrusting
unceremoniously a large spoon between the carver and the dish,
whilst she called out in tones of harsh command : " Four la
poitri?iaire, s^il-vous-plaif,'' which signified that before any one was
served, a wine-glassful of the crimson gravy must be secured for a
young invalid-friend of Madame Malet's.

It was apparently the power of expression, not of feeling, that was
lacking. With eyes full of sympathetic tears, Madame INIalet would
rend the ears and shatter the nerves of the victim she sought to
succour. Even towards Victor, her only child, and the very apple of
her eye, her bearing was not softened. On the contrary, he was
more hustled and shouted at than any one else. This, her well-meant
fashion of urging him along the right path, might have goaded him
into quite the opposite direction, had he not been happily endowed
with a heavily phlegmatic and obtuse disposition, which enabled him to
receive with more than indifi'erence the tempests of indignation and
reproof which periodically descended on him.

He was an unattractive-looking child, who had inherited his
mother's hay-coloured hair and general mealiness of complexion. He
was dedicated to the Virgin, a fact which always perplexed English and
Protestant observers who could detect no outward or visible sign of
this benign connection save in the colour of Victor's garments, which

The Hotel du Cheval Blanc, 415

were always scrupulously blue, in honour of his patron. The de-
votion which was her due he paid vicariously through his mother. It
was she who derived the keenest satisfaction frcm her son's religious
privileges. She used to point with joy and pride to a plaster image
of the Madonna, crowned with artificial flowers, that kept watch and
ward beside Victor's bed, as well as to a trousseau of smart clothes,
and a wonderful collection of presents of various kinds slowly accumu-
lating for what seemed to be the ultima Thule of Madame Malet's
earthly hopes — the day of Victor's First Communion. Madame Malet
would handle these treasures almost tenderly as she displayed them to
the English demoiselle and to the smooth-haired lady's-maid, who
surveyed them with that mixture of curiosity and contempt she
assigned to foreign things and persons.

Victor himself cared for none of these things, and did not affect to
do so. He was not devotionally inclined, and his only manifestation
of religious zeal was his habit of shouting " Alleluia " lustily when he
played at horses on Sundays or holy days. It failed unfortunately to
satisfy Madame Malet's standard of religious observance.

" Hein ! your alleluias ! " she would exclaim bitterly, with the in-
tensely ironical intonation her son's shallow devices so often provoked.
" Rose, conduct Victor to the mass this instant." And to the mass
this ward of the Madonna would be forthwith conveyed, loudly
weeping and protesting as he went.

He was not more remarkable for his learning than for his piety. I
well remember, on a bright summer evening, his inglorious return
from the distribution of prizes at the village school. The reward of
merit is lavish on such occasions. Everybody, good, bad and
indiflerent, receives something, and the really deserving pupils are
laden with more books in gorgeous bindings than they can carry, and
crowned with a corresponding number of exquisitely neat laurel
wreaths.

Victor entered the courtyard with a small thin book and a solitary
wreath, the meagre portion of the dunce. He was himself disposed
to make the best of it, and he presented the book with a self-conscious
air to his mother, and even ventured in true orthodox fashion to hang
the wreath upon her head. It was no easy feat to accomplish, for
Madame Malet, stiff with displeasure, made no effort to assist him,
and he succeeded, by standing on tiptoe, in so placing it, that it hung
all awry over one eyebrow, imparting the last fine touch to the look
of grim and speechless disgust with which she contemplated these
tokens of her son's proficiency.

Regularly every morning a quaint little figure came through the
archway. This was Madame Martin, who gave daily lessons to Made-
moiselle Smeete {Anglice, Smith), the elder sister of the English
demoiselle. Madame Martin had a tiny chocolate-coloured face, sup-
ported by a disproportionately long and thin neck, and bore, probably

4i6 The Hotel du Cheval Blanc.

in consequence of this, a striking resemblance to a tortoise. She had
a bird-Uke profile, with a sweet-tempered mouth and two prominent
and sparkling black eyes. She corrected the exercises of her pupil,
and kept time beside her while she practised on the piano with a
minute blue-veined hand, stained and seamed by household labour.

Her marriage, seeing that in her maiden days she had been
governess to the Duke's daughter, was not so socially illustrious as
might have been expected. On the other hand, it was highly
romantic, unlikely as that may appear to those who have not observed
how superior is the destiny of everyday life to the prejudices of novel-
writers and novel-readers, and how constantly she selects for the
heroes and heroines of her most interesting stories persons devoid
either of youth or beauty.

It was under the screen of sacred music, or rather of its cultivation,
that Cupid assailed Madame Martin.

In the village choir which she directed there was a young carpenter
with a sweet tenor voice and two melting dark eyes. Mademoiselle
Guerin, as she then was, fell in love with this engaging chorister.
He returned her affection, and finally proposed and was accepted.

The engagement was, of course, viewed with anything but approba-
tion by her friends at the Chateau and elsewhere : whenever did a
purely romantic alliance find favour in the eyes of the bystanders ?
the practical advantages of the proposed union are all that they
consider ! But the love in this case was vigorous enough to survive all
discouragement. They were married, and lived happy ever afterwards
— or at least were so living when we exiles were quartered at the
Cheval Blanc. Mademoiselle Smeete, who once caught sight of
Monsieur Martin, maintained that his eyes, besides being handsome,
were brimful of honesty and tenderness ; and Madame Martin's
domestic happiness was written plainly in her beaming little face.

The relations between the pupil and her teacher were singularly
happy. Mademoiselle Smeete was enchanted by the liveliness and
charm of Madame Martin's manners and conversation ; and Madame
Martin for years afterwards descanted so warmly on the intelligence and
application of Mademoiselle Smeete, that she became a bugbear to all
later pupils. They had their differences of opinion nevertheless, in
the matter of composition more especially. Mademoiselle Smeete
rather aimed at originality of expression, whilst Madame Martin
preferred terms consecrated by long and constant use. " The season
of bud and blossom and hope," Mademoiselle Smeete would, for
instance, write with the grandiloquence natural to her tender age ; and
Madame Martin, after doubtfully contemplating this fine phrase for
some seconds, would mercilessly erase it with one stroke of her pen,
and triumphantly substitute " the springtime."

With regard to romantic literature, Madame IMartin entertained
opinions which Mademoiselle Smeete considered to be inconveniently
fastidious. The novels composed especially iox jeunes filles^ provided

The Hotel du Cheval Blanc. 417

by Madame Martin for the entertainment of her pupil, were very far
from satisfying the robust appetite of that young EngUshwoman.
Once, indeed, in consideration of the emancipated position of the
British " demoiselle," Madame Martin did, with some hesitation and
many apologies to her own conscience, confide to Mademoiselle
Smeetc a novel which, "for everything in the world she would not
have placed in the hands of a French pupil." The expectations
aroused in Mademoiselle Smeete's mind by this assurance were not
altogether fulfilled. In this, even from Madame Martin's point of
view, highly virtuous story, there was but one incident which could
alarm the most sensitive delicacy. A husband fell in love with his
own wife, and on declaring his passion, went so far as to embrace her.
Even Madame Martin did not assert that this was positively improper,
but she characterised it disapprovingly as '''■ iin peu trop fort^

The conversation lessons which formed part of these studies took
place in the Park, where the owner kindly permitted the English
visitors to wander at will. Madame Martin herself, in virtue of her
still unbroken connection with the Chateau, had a key of her own.

As she and her English pupil paced the shady walks on brilliant
summer mornings, she would discourse fluently on bygone days,
especially those passed at the Chateau itself, calling up before the mind
of her listener quaint glimpses of foreign life and customs. The
central figure in nearly all these reminiscences was her quondam
pupil. Mademoiselle Jeanne d'Harcourt, the Duke's granddaughter, a
young lady who ventured, it appeared, to have tastes and opinions of
her own, and above all with so eccentric a disinclination for marriage
that she persisted in remaining unwed till she was past twenty-four,
when, as Madame Martin simply expressed it, her position became
ridicule dans le monde. To Mademoiselle Smeete it seemed worse
than ridiculous, since even at that advanced age Mademoiselle
Jeanne was so tied and bound by conventional restrictions as to be
unable to go unchaperoned from one end of her grandfather's
chateau to another. Probably Mademoiselle Jeanne herself somewhat
chafed at these trammels, for at last she listened to the addresses of a
young man, or rather of the friends of a young man, who was amiable
and studious and domestic in his tastes. In other respects he was
hardly a suitable wooer for her father's child, but things had come to
such a pass in the matter of age, that her family had to be thankful
for small mercies.

Occasionally we lunched at the Chateau, a huge barrack-like
building in which the whole population of the little town might easily
have been lodged. Once upon a time it was none too big, we may
suppose, for the establishment of the family which, when we knew it,
had dwindled to a man and a maid.

We used to pass through a long succession of salons almost un-
furnished, but lined with family portraits of illustrious soldiers and
court ladies, till we reached the little drawing-room which the Duchess

VOL. Liv. 2 c

41 8 The Hotel die Cheval Blanc.

had made her own, or the Hbrary where she was for ever re-arranging
the books.

She was a kindly old lady, with that simplicity of manner which
seems in all countries the mark of high-breeding. She wore soft-
coloured silks and rich old lace drooped over her snow-white hair
and her tiny withered hands. There was no sign in her placid cheer-
ful face of the storms which she had weathered. Her parents were
guillotined during the French Revolution, and she herself, an infant of
three or four, stood behind them on the scaffold awaiting the same
fate, when a dourreau, moved by a sudden impulse of pity, snatched
her up and tossed her into the heaving crowd below. She was picked
up by one of her own class who had escaped the popular fury, and
who, when he opened the locket that hung round the child's neck,
recognised the portrait of his sister, and perceived that it was his own
niece whom fate had thus strangely thrust into his arms. Of her
subsequent fate I know nothing, save, of course, that she married the
Duke d'Harcourt.

The evening of her days was as peaceful as that which so often
follows a stormy morning. As she prayed in the chapel, or sat at
meat with her little granddaughter, or walked in the long green alleys
of the park, undisturbed and unthreatened, that reign of terror, if
she remembered it at all, must have seemed to her no more real than
a tale that is told.

The family-party at the Chateau included at that time only the
Duchess and her granddaughter, Marie, a pretty little blonde person
who was apt to look thin and blanched when brought into the trying
neighbourhood of our blooming " English demoiselle." In the
matter of accomplishments, however, she left that little idler far
behind. Her musical performances used to transfix the English
demoiselle with surprise and admiration. Her eyes grew larger, and
her lips parted, not unbecomingly, with awe as she, who could
hardly stumble through " Lilla is a lady," listened to Mademoiselle
Marie, playing whole sonatas, classical sonatas, with the precision of
a machine and about as much feeling.

But how far into the past has time swept all this ! The English
demoiselle is now the mother of a good sized-family, and it is years
since I read in a fashionable chronicle the list of ravishing toilettes
prepared for the trousseau of Mademoiselle Marie d'Harcourt.

The railway has reached Harcourt since we left it. Perhaps the
Hotel du Cheval Blanc, like many of those who spent together there
so pleasant a summer, exists no longer save in the memory of the
survivors.

419

A TALE OF A WEDDING-CAKE.

" nPHERE, that's exactly the kind of wedding-cake I should like to

-^ have when I am married ! Look at it, Gladys ; look, Olive ;
look, Molly ! Aren't those sprays of flowers quite too lovely ? Oh I
I shall certainly have one just like that — only a good bit larger — if I
can only remember it, and describe it to Gunters ! "

The speaker was the eldest of a charming quartette of girls, shorter
than her sisters, but instinct with a certain sense of superiority over
them, as having completed her twenty-first year, and thus attained to
full young ladyhood. Opinions differed as to which was the prettiest
of them — plump, brown-eyed Bee ; Gladys, with her dazzling fair
skin and golden hair ; Olive, with her dark beauty ; or fifteen-year-
old Molly, whose curly locks still dispersed themselves, mantlewise,
over her slender shoulders. But all Axeford knew that the Mervyns
were far and away the prettiest girls in the town ; and the girls them-
selves had a certain little air of knowing it too — how should they
help it, with so many friends and admirers ready to inform them of
the fact ?

" I like to think of our weddings — what fun they'll be ! " said
Molly, still gazing at the cake. " Of course yours will be the first in
the family. Bee ; and then we shall all be your bridesmaids, and
we'll wear pale blue, with the loveliest blush roses, don't you think ? "

" Oh, dear me — dear me ! so this is what your silly little heads are
running on ! I always was afraid of it, and now you stand convicted
out of your own mouths ! To you life is nothing but fun and flirting,
marrying and giving in marriage — now, isn't it so ? "

" And to you life is all strawberries and cream — now, isn't it so ? "
says impudent Molly, linking her arm in that of their assailant ; a stout,
merry-faced lady of something over fifty, who has the air of finding the
world a very excellent place to live in.

" You saucy child ! But come along ; come back to tea with me ;
and I'll tell you something that will amuse you — something that that
wedding-cake has put into my mind. I want you to taste some
scones I made to-day ; you girls, with your grand house, and your
array of servants, don't know anything of the pleasures of cooking
little dishes for oneself. Yes, and I'll give you strawberries and
cream too — all except Molly — as much as ever you can eat ; that's
the way to enjoy strawberries, / say. You can stay for the evening,
can't you ? No admirers coming to-night, are there ? Nor any
Grammar-School boys, eh, Molly ? "

" No, no ; don'^, Miss Summers ! " said Molly, turning a little red^

2 C 2

420 A Talc of a Wcdding-Cake.

and feeling nervously at her pocket for a packet of almond rock,
which a devoted admirer among those very Grammar-School boys pre-
sented her with only to-day ; while Bee and Gladys looked consideringly
at each other.

" Saturday — Saturday — it's Monday Tommy Atkins comes with his
flute, isn't it ? Yes. Oh, there's only ]Mr. Burwood and Mr. Wilkes
coming to-night — papa's friends, you know — and they won't come till
nine or ten, because papa dines in London to-day. So we'll give
up dining, and have tea with you instead — that'll be jolly ! "

These evenings spent with IMiss Summers were of no infrequent
occurrence, and it was not her fault that they were not more common
still. She did what in her lay to " mother " these girls, scolding and
laughing at them for their little follies, but loving them dearly, as they
knew full well. She often felt anxious for them, for their mother was
dead ; and their father, a wealthy man, seemed to have but one idea
as to their up-bringing — viz., that young things should have as good a
time as possible. Bee was a little queen in her own household, and
in society too ; and her sisters were princesses of the blood. Rich,
prosperous, and charming, they were bowed down to by everybody ;
boyish admirers haunted the house, and craved the royal bounty ; and
even "papa's friends" rendered homage to the powers that were,
executing delicate little commissions in town, mending fans, holding
wool, and making themselves generally useful, but yet reserving to
themselves the right to advise, call to order, and sometimes even to
scold, the young tyrants. " Her Majesty's ]\Iinister " Mr. Ellery Bur-
wood called himself, and Bee did not hesitate to summon her minister
whenever occasion required. Miss Summers was in fact the only
person whose friendship with the girls was unmixed with flattery. She
was genuinely anxious that they should grow up good and useful
women, and insisted that, while they were with her, they should paint,
work for the poor, and talk upon rational subjects. " For," as she
said, " you have brains of your own, children, though you do your best
to conceal the fact."

On this particular evening tea was just over, and the scones and
strawberries had been done full justice to, before any one remembered
ISIiss Summers' promise of an amusing story.

" Oh, yes ! Well," she said in answer to Gladys' reminder, " I
thought you'd be amused to hear about my wedding-cake. I never
told you about it, did I ? "

" Your wedding-cake ? Why, you never had one, had you ? "
questioned Molly, \nth wide-open eyes.

" To be sure I had. I've no notion of letting married people get
all the good things — cake, and presents, and all that, while we un-
married people get none. I didn't mean to stand it, I can tell you !
So when I got to an age when one gives up thinking of such things,
and settles down to a steady old spinster's life, I thought it was about
time that I should give out to my friends that I meant to have a

A Tale of a Wedding- Cake 421

wedding-day, all by myself — the 24th of June I decided upon, I
remember — for it is a good many years ago now. I went out and
bought myself a wedding-cake — an excellent one it was ; and I had a
few friends in to help me eat it, and my dear father and mother and I
finished it up at home. A lot of presents came in too — delightful
ones, some of them ; and all I can say is, that I believe few people
have had such a happy wedding-day as I had ! There, that's my
story. Now let's turn to our work. I want to get ready an outfit for
a poor girl going to service, and you must help me."

The girls laughed heartily at the story, and several times laughed
•again as they sat at their sewing, casting rather puzzled glances at
their hostess, who looked the very picture of comfort and well-being ;
her substantial figure (which had long ago given up all pretence at a
waist) ensconced in a large arm-chair, and her bright, happy face bent
over her work. At last, when they were putting on their hats to go
home. Bee stole up to her and asked timidly : " But don't you feel it
rather — rather y7(2/, not to be married ? I should have thought you
must have wanted to be. And yet you can't have, for I know a
person like you could have been married plenty of times, if you had
liked."

She spoke in an undertone, that the others might not hear, but
Miss Summers' answer was audible to all of them.

" Might have been married if I had liked ? Yes, certainly, child ;
I might. But the right man didn't come along ; perhaps there never
was a right man for me. Those things will come if they are to
come ; and oh, dear children, if you could only learn to think less
about them, and about yourselves altogether ! Think of others ; try
to make f^e;n happy. That's the best way to be really happy
yourselves, depend upon it. Now, good night, my chicks ! "

Bee stood for a minute or two looking out of the window, as if
suddenly absorbed in a new thought ; then she kissed Miss Summers
hurriedly, and darted out into the street.

" Come, come, girls ! " she exclaimed excitedly. "^Let me walk in
the middle, I want to tell you something. Miss Summers says we
ought to think about making other people happy ; and we'll do it —
we'll do it ! "

" Do it ? Do what ? How shall we do it ? " asked the others eagerly.

" Why, do it for Aunt Julia and Auntie Het — give them a wedding-
day ! They'll never marry now, poor things ; one's thirty-six and the
other thirty-five, you know, and they must have given up all thoughts
of it. Now's our time ! We'll give them a lovely wedding-day ;
we'll buy them presents ; we'll get them that very wedding-cake — oh,
lovely ! Let's go and buy it now ! "

The others were all agog with excitement in a minute, and for a
time there was a very Babel of voices. " I only wish we could have
provided husbands for the occasion," sighed Gladys, when the first ex-
citement had a httle bit toned down. " But of course that's impossible."

422 A Tale of a Wedding-Cake.

" Gladys I Of course it is ! " said fifteen-year-old Molly, almost
indignantly. " Just look at their age I "

'' I don't know. I have heard of a woman of thirty-five marrying."

" Once in a blue moon. Oh yes, I don't suppose there's anything
in the world that never happened," was Bee's wise, if not very lucid,
remark,

" Besides, I was looking at a book of Hamerton's the other day,"
said Olive, " and I particularly noticed his saying that French peasant
women were hags at five-and-thirty, the very most attractive age (so
he said) in EngHsh women."

" When they're married, of course he meant," said Bee decidedly.
^' Do you know, I've often thought about them — our aunts, I mean —
and felt sorry for them," she went on gravely. " Of course they have
horridly dull lives now, poor things ; and I'm afraid, from what father
says, they never had a good time when they were girls, either.
Grandfather was poor, or morose, or stingy, or something, and I don't
believe they ever saw anybody, so how could they get married ?
And I'm afraid they'd have liked to be ; they don't look very happy as
they are, do they? However, they must have given up really
thinking of it for years ; and this sort of wedding-day will be heaps
better than none at all, won't it ? We'll begin making out a list of
presents at once ; mine to Auntie Het shall be a specially nice one,
because she was so good to me that time I was ill ; when she came
and stayed in the house, you know."

" And their wedding-day might be the 24th of June — the same
day as Miss Summers' ! " cried Molly. " We'll tell dad to dine at
his club, because there oughtn't to be any hes there, ought there ?
Let the wedding be at six, and we'll say we are not at home that
evening; it'll do Tommy Atkins and Stanley good to spend an
evening at home once in a way ; and then, after the wedding, we'll
have a grand dinner, and wedding-cake — the wedding-cake — for
dessert ! "

XL

The wedding was fixed for the 24th, as Molly had suggested; and
as there was barely a week to make preparations in, the girls set
themselves busily to work. But first of all they started off — the
whole four of them — to make sure of the brides.

" They hardly ever have any engagements, true," said Bee. " Still,
just fancy how awful it would be if, when all the preparations were
made, we found they couldn't come ! "

The unconscious brides lived in a pretty little cottage in a quiet,
old-fashioned part of the town, with a shady garden which ran down
to the river. They led a quiet, useful, uneventful life, working in the
parish, attending the daily services at the old parish church which lay
just across the river, and going into society but little. A greater

, A Tale of a Wed ding-Cake, 423

contrast to the gay, careless life led by their nieces could hardly be
imagined ; but they always liked to see that merry quartette of girls,
and made them as welcome as they knew how. Miss Hester Mervyn
especially.

" I never saw such children as you are ; for ever inventing some
new plan, and going wild over it," she said laughingly, when her four
nieces pounced down upon her on this particular occasion, and, all
talking together, at last made her and their Aunt Julia understand
that their presence was requested at some high festival, the nature of
which was to be kept a profound secret. " What can this mysterious
festival be, I wonder? Oh yes, dear, we'll come of course. Aunt
Julia and I. But is it an outdoor or indoor affair ? What are we to
wear, I mean, full evening dress or not ? "

Bee and Gladys looked at each other, and Molly afterwards de-
clared that she could see the words " travelling dress " hovering on
their lips. Anyhow, Bee said after an instant's pause, " Oh, not
evening dress, please ; just come in nice high dresses — those dove-
coloured ones that you wore on Sunday will be just the thing, won't
they, Gladys ? "

"And then we'll be all dressed alike — in white, I suppose — for
Molly hasn't any dress to match our others," she went on, as they
almost danced home. " We shall have to act bridesmaids, you know^ ;
and we'll all have bouquets alike — forget-me-nots, I think — no, roses ;
and the brides shall have those exquisite carnations."

The girls had generally pocket-money enough and to spare, but on
this occasion they begged their father for an extra ten-pound note, for
there was the wedding-cake to buy, and they were determined that
the presents should be really good ones. Gladys and Olive shut
themselves up for two days together, for the painting of a handsome
screen which they bought in the town ; Bee scoured the shops for
flower-vases, hand-bags, and various other articles which they had
determined to buy ; and finally Mr. Burwood was summoned, and
commissioned to go to the stores the next day and choose the
loveliest little five-o'clock tea-table he could find, also a lady's purse,
which must have the initial H engraved upon it.

" And mind it's a very nice one, for it's for me to give," said Molly.
" Oh, Bee — oh, Gladys, let's tell him about it ; I'm sure he's dying to
know ! "

" Who wouldn't be, when this tremendous secret is making you all
look as if you had the affairs of the nation on your shoulders ? "
laughed Mr. Burwood, w^ho seemed remarkably complaisant for a busy
Q.C. as he was. But Bee spoke at the same moment :

" Molly ! I would not dream of telling — a man ! " she said, sinking
her voice at the last two words ; and Molly dropped her eyes, abashed.

" I bow to the Queen Bee. I wouldn't hear the secret for worlds,"
said Mr. Burw^ood.

And so the secret was never divulged to any one — not even to Miss

424 A Tale of a Wedding-Cake,

Summers, who, as it happened, was called away to nurse a cousin the
very morning after the girls had been to tea with her ; and the order-
ing of the day had to be left to the girls' own unaided wisdom. They
felt fully equal to it, however ; and when six o'clock came at last,
everything was ready.

In the drawing-room the shutters had been shut, and the gas
and candles lighted — a perfect blaze of illumination ; for, as Bee
remarked, it looked more of a festival so. The fire-place was a mass
of flowers and ferns artistically arranged by Gladys ; the various
presents w^ere spread out on two tables, placed on each side — one for
Aunt Julia, the other for Auntie Het ; and in front of the fire-place,
against a background of flowers and ferns, stood the wedding-cake,
hidden just now by the screen, which had been finished just in time,
by dint of heroic exertions. At the piano sat Olive, her fingers itching
to begin the " Wedding March," which she had been practising up for
the occasion ; Bee and Gladys were flitting about the room, putting
little finishing touches to the arrangement of the flowers and the
presents ; and Molly, all agog with excitement, pranced up and down
the hall, now and then peeping in to admonish the cat and dog, whom
she had fantastically decked out with flowers, and who were now
sitting solemnly on stools by the two tables, as guardians of the
presents. " We shall answer the door ourselves, Thomas," she had
said ; for true to Bee's perception of the fitness of things, no man was
to be allowed any share whatever in the proceedings.

Very pretty Molly looked, in her white dress, with a bouquet of pink
roses in her hand, and her mantle of golden hair on her shoulders ;
and so her aunts thought, as, the bell sounding at last, she opened the
door to them and bowed them in. Hats and cloaks were soon
disposed of, Mr. Mervyn's study having been temporarily fitted up as
a dressing-room ; and then, having presented each with a lovely
bouquet of carnations, Molly ushered them into the brightly4ighted
drawing-room, just as Olive was thundering out the first bars of the
" Wedding March."

The " brides " looked very well, too, in their pretty dove-coloured
dresses ; Bee's quick eyes noted that at once, as she led them, with
smiles, but no words, to the sofa. " Auntie Het " was pale and quiet-
looking, and her dress was quiet to match ; but Aunt Julia, who was
taller, and had more presence than her sister, wore her dove-colour
"with a difference," having little scarlet bows here and there, which
seemed to set off the colour in her cheeks. " Aunt Julia looks quite
handsome, but I love Auntie Het the best. I am glad I got her the
nicest presents," said Bee to herself.

The brilliant light was quite dazzling to eyes fresh from the tender
gloom of a grey summer evening ; and both ladies looked thoroughly
mystified, but amused and expectant at the same time. Nothing
could have pleased the girls better ; they wanted the whole meaning
of the thing to dawn upon the brides gradually.

■A Tale of a Wedding- Cake, 425

As soon as Olive's spirited performance of the " Wedding March" had
come to an end, Gladys mounted a small rostrum (the programme for
the evening had been carefully arranged beforehand) ; Bee drew back
the screen, disclosing the wedding-cake ; and Molly seated herself
midway between the cat and dog, on a foot-stool which had been
placed behind the screen in readiness for her ; while Olive remained
at the piano, having orders to play soft and appropriate music, as an
accompaniment to the speeches to be delivered.

It was not for nothing that Tommy Atkins, Gladys' devoted admirer,
had been articled to a solicitor in the town.

" Whereas," she began, with recollections of certain " musty old
papers " which she had seen him copying — " Whereas, it hath been
pointed out to us that in the lives of certain persons — to wit, un-
married persons — there is often a grievous hardship, viz., that they,
unlike their married brethren — sistren, I mean — no, sisters — are
debarred from the pleasures, and festivities, and the — the free-will
offerings, which are the usual concomitants of the — the drawing
together of the bonds of matrimony, it hath seemed good to us to —

to " The effort had been almost too much for her -, she hesitated,

gasped, and looked helplessly at her sister.

" I'll go on, shall I ? " said the self-possessed Bee, jumping up, and
giving her a hand to descend. " It was almost my turn, you know ;
and you've done it awfully well. Now for my part," and with a
beaming face she ascended the rostrum. " I can't speak grandly, but
this is just how it is," she began. " You see. Aunt Hester and Aunt
Julia, Miss Summers was saying to us the other day that she thought
it was very hard that unmarried people shouldn't have presents, and a
cake, and all that, you know ; and that when the time came when she
knew she shouldn't be married, she made a wedding-day for herself,
and had — oh, such a jolly time ! So we thought we'd have one for
you ; and here is your wedding-cake, and here are your presents — this
tableful for you. Aunt Het, and that for Aunt Julia ; and we've done
everything we can think of to make it nice, and we do hope "

She suddenly stopped, and the dimpled arm, which had been out-
stretched, fell helplessly to her side. Aunt Julia had sprung up, and
was standing close under the rostrum, red with passion, her cheeks
now indeed rivalling the hues of the bows on her dress. " Come
down ! " she said, laying an imperious hand on Bee's dress. " Come
down at once, you rude, impertinent little thing ! " And Bee came
down, her eyes round with dismay, and her pink cheeks rapidly
paling.

It was as though a sudden and appalling thunder-clap had re-
sounded through the room. None of the girls had had the least
warning of it, for Bee and Gladys had been engrossed in their own
and each other's oratory ; Olive had been at the piano ; and Molly —
poor Molly — was engaged in superhuman efforts to prevent the dog
and cat from descending from their pedestals, and making a rush at

VOL. Liv. 2 c*

426 A Tale of a Wedding-Cake.

each other. So they now stood dazed and mute, as Aunt JuHa, almost
choking with passion, poured out the torrent of her indignation.

" You are rude, insolent children, all of you ! That you should
Jare to insult us so ! — it is almost beyond belief — it is quite beyond
forgiveness ! — yes, Hester, it is, and you know it," for her sister, pale
and trembling, had laid a hand on her arm. " Let me speak, pray.
These insolent little chits shall not give themselves airs with me,
whatever they may do with their friends ! I speak as I think ; and of
all the impudent, ill-bred people that my experience of the world, and
my — my age have brought me into contact with, William's children are
-out and out the worst ! Come away, Hester — come away ! "

She was close to the door by this time, and marched out, while the
girls, with pale, scared faces, stood looking stupidly after her. But
the sound of the street door, as she slammed it behind her, roused
them, and with one accord they turned to look at their other aunt.
^' Are you angry, too. Auntie Het ? " faltered Bee. '* Oh ! have we
hurt you — have we hurt you ? " And when there was no response,
save that her eyes filled with tears, they all gave way together,
throwing themselves down on chairs and sofas, in the abandonment of
their grief.

" I know you meant well, dear children," she said, and would have
kissed them ; but not a face was lifted, and she could only stroke
their bright hair. Then she too went out ; and the cat and dog fell
to with a will, and fought, and scratched, and bit, unmolested, to the
accompaniment of sobs, and deep, heartrending groans.

" Oh ! oh ! " wailed Molly at last. " When I was a little thing,

and had to drink mustard-and-water because I had eaten poisonous

berries, I said ' I hated the day, I'd beat the day ' ; and I wish — I wish

I could do it now ! "

* * * * * *

Nearly an hour later, the drawing-room door opened, and a tall
figure appeared on the threshold ; and a pair of keen kindly eyes sur-
veyed the scene with ever growing amazement. The blaze of light, the
wedding-cake, the flowers, and the presents — some of which the quick
eyes recognised at once — everything seemed to denote high festival,
but the strange appearance of the young ladies of the house. Bee
w^as rocking herself to and fro, her dimpled elbows on her knees, and
her face buried in her hands ; Gladys and Olive were huddled together
•on the sofa, their arms round each other, and their faces hidden on
-each other's shoulders ; and as for Molly, she had cast herself full
length upon the rug. Nobody looked up, and Ellery Burwood's ear
caught the sound of muffled sobs.

" What on each is the matter ? " he demanded, shutting the door,
and coming up close to the woe-begone group. " What has happened ?
For goodness' sake, tell me ; don't keep me in suspense ! "

There was genuine alarm in his tone ; and whether this amused
the girls, or whether it was merely that a certain reaction against their

A Tale of a Wedding- Cake. 427

grief was just setting in, certain it is that they looked up at him for a
minute with tear-stained faces, and then burst into uncontrollable
laughter, which, however, sounded perilously like sobbing.

" Yes, I'll tell you, I'll tell you ! " gasped Bee. All her scruples as
to letting any ^es into the secret had vanished now, in the disastrous
overthrow of the cherished scheme.

She began bravely enough ; but long before Mr. Burwood had any
inkling of the real state of the case, the tide of misery swept over her
again, and sobbing out " You go on, Gladys ; I can't," she buried her
face in her hands, and began rocking to and fro once more. So-
Gladys had to go on ; and she, bravely struggling with both laughter
and tears, and clinging to Olive's arm for support, managed to give a
fairly intelligible account of the whole affair ; while Ellery Burwood
settled himself to listen, and, if need be, to cross-examine, his hands
in his pockets, and his keen humorous eyes (there- was not much
anxiety in them now) fixed on Gladys' downcast face.

Suddenly, however, there came a change. He started, wheeled
round, and finally almost turned his back upon Gladys, making
Molly, whose face had still been hidden in the rug, rear her head,
and dart a quick glance at him. What she saw made her give a
hasty pinch to Bee's foot, and from that minute the two watched him
as though fascinated. He was perfectly unconscious of their gaze-
A sudden and deep flush had suffused his usually pale face ; his lips,
which w^ere so firm and even compressed, were trembling ; and his
eyes — so Molly afterwards declared — were liquid with tears. As
Gladys finished her story with, " Oh, we never meant to hurt them ;
you know we couldn't have meant to hurt them ! " he seemed to
pull himself together with a great effort, and turned round again, pale
as ever, but with a strange gleam in his eyes which struck her at
once. What was it ? Not anger, for he said quickly, but very
kindly, " I know, I know ! you would none of you hurt a fly if you
knew it. But — good heavens ! " — here he flushed again, even more
deeply than before, and seemed to struggle with words that would
come whether he liked it or no — " the idea of thinking that a woman
of five-and-thirty has lost all her attractions ! " Then he, too, made for
the door, and, like the two " brides," was seen no more that night.

Shock number two. But far from being a knock-down blow, as was
the first, this second shock brought all the girls to their feet in
breathless excitement. " Olive ! " " Bee ! " " Gladys — oh Gladys ! "
was all they could ejaculate for a minute or two ; then the three
rushed into each other's arms, and Bee exclaimed, " Which, oh which
is it ? ' Five-and-thirty,' he said ; but how should he know ? Does
he — can he Oh, what a wonderful, wonderful day ! "

While Molly skipped wildly round the room, and then fell on her
knees before the cake. " Dear, dear wedding-cake ! " she cried,
hugging it in her arms. " You may be wanted after all — I do believe
you will be ! "

428 A Tale of a Wedding-Cake.

III.

When Miss Hester Mervyn left her nieces' house, she went straight
home to the little cottage by the river-side. She did not much
expect to find her sister there, thinking it probable that she would
"walk her temper off" — a plan which Miss Julia Mervyn not infre-
quently tried, and which generally had a very good effect. In all
likelihood she was trying it now ; at any rate, she had not come in ;
and after taking off her bonnet and cloak, Hester Mervyn came down
to the little sitting-room, dropped wearily into a chair, and began to
think.

And her thoughts were very sad ones. As her young nieces had
divined, she had led a very colourless life. Her parents had been
not only poor, but strongly Puritan in their notions, keeping their two
daughters very strictly to their needlework and their various house-
hold duties, and seeming to have no idea that young things wanted
amusements, or companions of their own age. So girlhood came and
went, without having ever brought any young lovers, or even friends,
to them ; and Hester, who had plenty of romantic ideas of her own —
as what girl has not ? — found nothing for them to feed on. More-
over, she was of a deeply affectionate, self-sacrificing nature ; her
heart craved for love, and yet more for some one upon whom to pour
out the treasures of her own love ; she adored little children, and
would fain have had some of her very own to tend and care for, as
any one must have known who saw the wistful look that would come
into her eyes as she watched a mother and child together. If she
dreamed — if she still dreamed — of such happiness being yet one day
hers, who can blame her? She was not young, she was not beautiful
— she knew that well enough — but the heart knoweth its own tender-
ness as well as its own bitterness, and finds it hard sometimes to
realise that that tenderness may never find full scope, full expression.

So it was that this evening's events had been a sudden and most
painful shock to her, bringing light to her mind, but darkness into
her soul. That she had cherished any dreams, she had hardly known
until to-night ; now she had been made to see herself as others saw
her, and to acknowledge, what she ought (so she told herself) to have
acknowledged long ago — that those dreams must be banished for
ever. It was a heavy blow, coming as it did without any warning ;
and sitting down at the little table in the window, she wept quietly
but very bitterly, mourning for the hopes that were no more. " They
say that every dog has his day," she said to herself at last with a sad
little smile. " That is not true. I have never had my day, and I
never shall."

There was a quick impatient rap at the door, and the next minute
the little maid-servant ushered in a gentleman. Hester rose mechani-
cally to meet him, hardly seeing who it was in the gathering gloom.

A Tale of a Wcdding-Cakc, 429

Ellery Burwood had hurried away from his amazed young friends
with his brain, Hke his face, on fire. " Oh, the insolence of youth —
the insolence of youth ! " he muttered to himself as he shut the
street door after him ; then he thought no more of them, being lost
in wonder at his own feelings. He had had no conception, until
that night, that Hester Mervyn was anything, or ever would be any-
thing, to him. He had often met her at her brother's house ; he
had noticed her quiet gentle ways, — the tenderness with which she
nursed Bee in her long illness, the sweetness of the rather sad mouth,
the wistfulness of the grave, deep-set eyes. "A sweet-natured,
gentle-souled woman," he had said to himself once or twice ; then
she went back to her little cottage home ; and what with the rush of
business, and the pleasant distractions to be found at his friend's
house and elsewhere, he had thought no more of her. Now, how-
ever, came to him a sudden revelation both of himself and of her — of
her, with her tender, sensitive spirit — of himself, possessed with deep
and reverent admiration for her, an admiration that at a word would
spring into love — nay, that had sprung into it already.

" Blind fool that I was ! " he exclaimed, in bitter wrath with
himself. " And she — she is suffering now, and I might perhaps have
spared her ! "

He had hurried on, only half conscious where his steps were
taking him ; now he found himself outside the cottage. He paused
but a moment, then knocked at the door, as we have seen.

Miss Mervyn was in, and alone, the servant said ; and before
Hester rose, he had time to see the sad, sweet face, with its traces of
recently shed tears. He could not begin quietly. " Miss Mervyn —
Hester," he burst out as soon as the door was shut, " I have come to tell
you — to ask you — you will let me speak — you will not send me away ? "

Then Hester listened to the story she had thought but now that
she was never to hear ; her sweet, grave eyes dilating, first with keen
amazement (for she had never dreamt, sweet modest soul, that any
friend of her charming young nieces could ever spare even a glance
for her) then with the dawning of a new-found joy. " I think — I
think — " she murmured, in answer to his eager questionings. " But
oh ! you must give me time — time to think ; it is all so strange."

" I will, I will, my darling," he said, with tender consideration for
her bewilderment ; and Hester leaned her face on her hands and
tried to think it all over. Suddenly she looked up at him. " Have
you been there ? Did you hear anything about this evening ? " she
asked breathlessly.

" I did."

It was Hester's turn to flush now. She rose and went to the
window, standing there with bent head, and hands tightly clasped.
The river was discoursing sweet murmurous music as it flowed softly
past in the twilight ; but she heard nothing but the quick surging of
the blood as it rose in waves to her brain. " Oh, go away, pray go

430 A Tale of a Wedding-Cake,

away ! " she said at last, in an agony of shame. But, instead of

obeying, he came up close to her and took her clasped hands in his.

" Hester — my Hester — do you think it was pity ? Look at me !

Are you so bad a judge of expression as that ? "

******

So the wedding-cake was wanted after all ; Ellery Burwood said he
would have no other. And Bee was not the first of the family to be
married, either ; but she and her sisters made a charming quartette of
bridesmaids to " Auntie Het," and enjoyed the wedding-day immensely.

" Out of evil comes good," said Bee sententiously, as, the guests all
gone, they surveyed the remnants of the cake. "We made dreadful
little asses of ourselves that day ; I feel quite hot even now when I
think of it. Still, who knows but what Auntie Het might never have
had a wedding-cake at all if it hadn't been for us ? "

THE HARVEST NOW IS GATHERED IN."

Hey, for the wealth of the harvest weather,
When all shall be faithfully garnered in !

For that we have sown we shall surely gather —
The gold for the goodly, the ruth for sin.

Every season its birthright knoweth —
The seedling planted in vernal spring

Through the summer in silence groweth.
While callow nestlings find voice and sing.

On we go, by the wayside sowing.

Broadcast sowing with open hand ;
Ever behind us, springing and growing,

" A cloud of witnesses " hide the land.

Aye, but heed we the seed in planting ?

Sow we in patience, and till the ground ?
Ask we, when grown will the seed be wanting

In fulness and soundness, or worthy found ?

Swift in our hearts is the harvest springing.
Side by side grow the wheat and tares.

And ever there cometh an autumn, bringing
Tears and laughter, and joys and cares.

Sow, O, friend, as the years speed o'er you,

Sow good seed with an open hand ;
Sow ; the promise lies clear before you ;

You'll reap the fruit in God's Harvest Land !

Helen Marion Burnside.

431

SOCIABILITY OF SQUIRRELS.

A /r Y first acquaintance with this agreeable quaUty in the agile,
^^^ graceful creatures, darting from bough to bough in our English
woods, was made when I was staying at a beautiful country house in
Devonshire. I used often to sit very quietly sketching under the fine
old trees, and the squirrels would come to the end of an overhanging
bough, and watch my proceedings with apparent interest.

As I do not understand their dialect, I cannot say what might be
their opinion of my performances, but they chatted very merrily,
seeming glad to welcome an intruder on their solitude.

For many years our own home was in the middle of a pine-wood,
and there a much more intimate friendship was formed with the
squirrels. Our gardener found a young one caught in a net in the
strawberry bed, and brought it to me. It was kept for some time in
a squirrel-cage, where it seemed tolerably contented ; but we were not
happy about our small captive. Accidentally, or purposely, the door
was left open, and we were glad when it regained its liberty.

A day or two afterwards, a young lady who was staying in the house
told us that our squirrel had run up to her in the gravel walk ; and
next morning Charlie made his appearance at the dining-room window.
His visits were repeated for several days. No attempt was made to
capture him. He ran about the room as if in search of something ;
and at last jumped on a canary's cage which hung in the window.

" I believe he is looking for his own old home," I said. And
immediately upon my fetching it from the loft where it had been put
away, Charlie ran in, and gave himself a swing on the roller, and ate
the nuts we placed in the tray.

It is to be supposed that Charlie told his friends that we were
lovers of animals, and might be trusted ; for other squirrels frequentl}'
visited us, in the house and in the grounds. Those were the happy
days — for quiet country ladies — of croquet-playing ; and we had a
levelled ground in a part of the fir-wood, near the garden, where we
often spent the summer afternoons. There the squirrels were quite at
home, and would run up our mallets, and sit upon our shoulders, or
even on the crowns of our hats.

Some of our visitors they made acquaintance with immediately,
others they always avoided. A little toy-terrier, with a bell attached
to its collar, which the cunning little creature used to try to silence,
that it might steal upon our favourites unheard, was their peculiar
aversion ; but our own pet Skye, St. Barbe, would let them climb over
his back, and frolic about him without stirring an inch.

Mrs. Brightwen in her admirable volume, ' Wild Nature tamed by

432 Sociability of Squirrels.

Kindness,' is quite right in affirming that quietness is the great con-
ciliator of animals. An abrupt gesture will at once startle and drive
them away ; but if you sit still they will gain confidence, and come
nearer and nearer, till they learn to feed out of your hand, to nestle in
the folds of your dress, and even to search in your pockets for nuts
and crusts of bread which they know you often carry about with you.

One of my sisters, who was particularly gentle in voice and manner,
and very fond of animals, exercised a peculiar charm over the squirrels.
She often got up at five o'clock to feed them, when they pattered
across the verandah to her window ; and she always kept a store of
food for them. A china jar of nuts stood* on the mantel-piece, and
she more than once remarked on its becoming mysteriously empty.
At last it was discovered that the squirrels came into the room, lifted
off the lid, and helped themselves without breaking the fragile
ornament.

We kept a good many fowls — bantams and half-bantams — which
had a fancy for roosting in the fir-trees, and one of the hens would
persist in laying her eggs in a squirrel's nest. This was carrying
sociability too far, and the squirrel got into a rage and danced round
it until the eggs were removed.

It often amused us to see the hens teaching the little chickens to
climb the trees, and gathering them under their wings on quite a
slender bough. We used to put sticks and twigs to aid the youngsters
in their ascent.

The window where the squirrel's cage stood was also a favourite
resort of our hens, who always brought their young broods there, and
often came to be fed. They did not approve of the squirrels, and
would gather in a circle round one of them, on the lawn, attracting us
to the windows by their furious and noisy cackling.

Charlie would remain quite still till the circle had gradually drawn
closer ; then, with a sudden spring, would jump high over their heads,
and in another moment be chattering at them from the boughs of a
magnificent ilex tree, in which he and his friends greatly delighted.

That wide verandah supported by rough, unpainted pine trunks
finally cost us the loss of our company of squirrels. The poles grew
rotten, and had to be replaced. It was a very noisy, tedious opera-
tion, nearly overcoming our own patience, and quite tiring out that
of our wild little pets. Perhaps the workmen teased or frightened them.
They never afterwards renewed their visits.

Quite a growth of nut bushes threatened to grow up on the lawn,
where they buried their spoil. They always secreted a few when fed,
and carried them away. I suppose they forgot where they were
hidden, for in all parts of the grounds tiny trees sprang up, where,
certainly, they had never been planted by human hands.

The gamekeepers from a neighbouring estate came purposely to see
our squirrels, and went away satisfied with the truth of their master's
report of the tameness to which they had been brought by the exercise

Sociability of Squirrek, 4.33

of sympathy, discretion, and the total absence of restraint and
coercion.

We used to amuse ourselves picking up cones and sticks in the fir-
wood, and the squirrels would come and chatter and laugh in the tree-
tops, flinging down in sport, or to help us, large fir-cones, which in
spring and autumn we loved to see sparkle on our hearths, emitting a
sweet, wholesome fragrance.

Probably those sharp teeth did not improve the trees by robbing
them of their young shoots ; but, after all, the pine woods were so
plentiful, and the trees were often twisted and scathed, and not worth
the trouble of being carted away, when felled by south-westerly gales,
so we never grudged the squirrels their merry play.

The son of St. Barbe, the dog who was so friendly with our
squirrels, could not bear them, and used to try to climb trees in
pursuit of them. Rough was also naturally averse to cats, but formed
such a friendship with one of ours and her progeny that, unless the
kittens were sent too far away, he would fetch them back.

Once our maids could not get the dog to move from the root of a
fir-tree, half way between Heathside and Parkstone, until he had
coaxed down one of these kittens, which had been given away, and
was lying hidden among the branches, where it had taken refuge
after trying to find its way to its birthplace.

Rough persisted in his solicitations until they were crowned with
complete success. Then, after kissing each other, the affectionate
couple walked home side by side contentedly. The mother cat was
often seen " kissing with patient love the stone that marks his burial-
ground ; " and mournfully prowling round the spot just above the
croquet lawn, where our first favourite, the Heathside dog, was laid.

Nature vindicates herself, and Providence rebukes man's feeble
judgment. If you feed the wild birds well, they will not be such
pilferers of your seeds and fruits, and they will clear your shrubs and
trees of their deadlier insect foes. The always harmonious sounds
which haunt our hills and groves will give us sweeter melody than
hired musicians. But the miscalled " Dumb Animals " can speak for
themselves.

" List to our hundred voices heard by mount, and stream, and rill,
The thousand mingled tones that rise above the distant hill.

We ask no subtle orators to plead in our great cause,
We take it from your judgment halls, we bow not to your laws ;
High in the heavens our voice is heard, there judgment shall be given,
The Lord of man and beast presides in the great court of heaven !

That great immortal Father Who sees the sparrow fall.
In Whose kind ear our separate tones form one harmonious call.
Who knows the wants and feels the woes of every living thing,
From the spider on the dungeon-wall to the forests' mighty king."

Rosa Mackenzie Kettle.

434

A BALCONY AT LUCERNE.

By W. W. Fenn.

'T^HOSE who remember Lucerne five-and-twenty years ago will
-^ know it to have been one of the most romantic and picturesque
of Swiss towns. However modernized it may have become, the
mighty mountains surrounding it, near or remote, are indestructible ;
and to some extent the same may be said of the many towers, ancient
buildings, and walls marking its antiquity. The venerable covered
wooden bridge, too, was a conspicuous feature at the time of which I
speak, and before the grand new one threw it into the shade, it used
to offer to me a delightful loitering place of an evening. I spent
many an hour there, especially when, to the artist's eye, the effects of
moonlight lent it an additional charm.

I was staying in rooms not far off in one of the houses overhanging
the rushing river Reuss, where it first narrows into its channel after
leaving the broad and lovely lake. There was quite a Venetian
aspect about this bit of the town, and the numerous balconies, one
above another, with which many of the houses were adorned, increased
the similarity. My room opened out on to one of these, high up,
and from it I could look down upon those, wider and broader,
belonging to the rooms beneath me.

The season was midsummer, the tourists had not arrived in force,
the weather was fine, and all was favourable to the artistic mission
which led me to the place. When the day's work was over, either the
bridge or my own balcony offered delightfully suggestive retreats well
suited to the meditative, fanciful reveries into which a painter's mind
loves to relapse. Nothing was lacking but the occasional companion-
ship of some sympathetic soul — woman's or man's. The former
preferable, perhaps, but not necessarily, for I was never very sus-
ceptible, as the phrase goes, and unless she should chance to be
thoroughly after the ideal of my own heart — or brain, more properly
speaking — I felt fairly contented with my solitude.

Such a " dream-being," however, was not likely to cross my path ;
and yet I had beheld some one flitting hither and thither at times,
whose outward aspect might have warranted the hope of her possessing
sympathies and tastes akin to my own. I do not pretend to draw a
word-picture of her ; let it suffice that if mere appearance had been
all in all, she would have more than satisfied my aspirations.

I was making several drawings under and about the bridge, and as
the shades of evening fell, I had frequently seen her taking her way
across the old wooden pile, as if returning from some regular occupa-
tion. She was no mere workwoman, how^ever ; and, though a foreigner.

A Balcony at Lucerne. 435

evidently not a Swiss, I could have been sworn. Not perhaps either
quite a lady, taking the word as vulgarly interpreted. Speculation ran
high about her ; but it was more than a fortnight after the first glimpse
ere I discovered that she actually lived in the rooms immediately
under mine.

One warm night, when the moon was streaming over the Venetian
canal-like avenue made by the houses on either bank of the river, I
was sitting smoking a cigar in my balcony, when voices coming from
that immediately underneath attracted my attention — a man's and a
woman's speaking in Italian. Looking down, I saw their figures, and
after a moment her face — the face I knew so well, and had admired
so much. It was the first really hot evening we had had, and she wore
nothing over her head but a lace mantilla. Only very indistinctly could
I catch the purport of their talk, for the monotonous roar of the Reuss
drowned most sounds not loud — and their voices were far from that.

I did not wish to listen either, though I could not help watching.
Nor, indeed, after a minute, could I help getting unmistakable
evidence that he was urging an unwelcome suit upon her. His action,
too, was unmistakable. More than once he tried to take her hand ;
and when, after much resistance on her part, he at last held it for a
moment, he bent his lips towards it ; ere they could touch it, how-
ever, she snatched it away, to his evident annoyance. In fact,
throughout he seemed greatly angered by her rejection of his over-
tures, and this last act of hers brought his rage to a climax. I plainly
heard him mutter an oath, and then, as he retreated ^rom the balcony
into the room I heard him in louder tones swear to be revenged.

She remained outside after he had disappeared, and a moment or
two later the resounding clang of a closing door, coming up the
common stairway of the house, told me he had left her apartments.

Should I know him again ?

Yes, I thought so. His tall, lithe, agile figure had a character in
it very distinguishable from the stoutish, thick-set, male population of
the Swiss town.

When he was gone, she lingered motionless, exactly where he left
her, and in the same attitude, her cheek resting on the hand of the
arm which leaned on the top rail of the iron balcony. The moon
fell with a clear, soft gleam upon her face ; and though that was not
strictly beautiful as to the features, it had a nameless charm for me —
greater than ever now.

Would you expect a solitary bachelor to have done anything else
than look and long ? To disturb her by so much as the faintest noise
even would have been sacrilege. I waited and watched. Like a
statue she stood for, I should guess, nearly an hour, her full weight,
as it seemed, resting upon that bar of iron. Then, on a sudden, this
delightful vision vanished, the window w^as closed with a snap, and I
was left with more than my usual pabulum for reflection.

436 A Balcony at Lucerne.

Was it four nights or four hours later that this scene was
reproduced ?

That I shall never know; but it was reproduced, I will swear, all
— to the smallest detail — as I have described it, and with the full
consciousness on my part, whilst gazing, that it had all happened
before, and that this was the second time I had witnessed the strange
interview. For this reason I use the word " reproduced " advisedly.
There I was in the balcony, and there were the man and woman in
the lower one again. You may hint that I am a dreamer, that this
was the result of the imaginative side of the artistic faculties, and that
it was absurd to suppose the same identical circumstance, in all
respects, would occur as it had done before. I can only insist it was
not the first time I had seen it.

Well, anyway, there I sat, on this second occasion, long after the
lady had retired into her room, long after the whole town was hushed
in the quiet of sleep, and long after the moon had dipped below the
opposite houses, throwing the whole course of the river into the deepest
gloom. Below, no sound or sign of movement, save the rush of the
Reuss ; above, pale, trembling stars, here and there, ever and anon
obscured by fleecy yet accumulating clouds ; but for the water,
absolute silence everywhere, and not a light visible in any window.

Far into the night my meditations carried me. The early summer
dawn perhaps might have been evident, but for the change coming
over the sky. Then, at last, a faint noise right underneath where
I sat, as of some one moving very irregularly, clambering as it were,
upon a quite low-down balcony. Yes, clambering up the iron-work
certainly — that was it ! — and getting every moment a little nearer,
a little higher up — very faint now and then, but louder at each
recurrence.

I bent down to look, but seeing was out of the question in that
thick darkness. Ears, however, are frequently more useful than eyes.
They were so in this case, for by accurate and intense listening, I
discovered what was going on.

A footstep had reached and planted itself in the lady's balcony
directly beneath mine. Soon there arose plainly to my acute sense of
hearing, a little grating noise, with a pause in it once or twice at first,
but afterwards for a considerable time. It was a little sawing noise,
the grating of a file upon the iron-work ! Remember, I could see
nothing, and could only catch these sounds very indistinctly amidst
the din and hum of the waters. But their meaning to me was not
indistinct ; that flashed into my mind very soon ; I strung it all
together in a moment. Some one was filing away the upper bar on
which that unknown being had rested her fair arm and hand, and that
" some one," beyond a doubt, was the vengeful rejected suitor.

To swing myself over my balcony and to descend to hers by one
of the upright supports which connected them, and then and there
confront the villain at his diabolical work, was an irresistible impulse.

A Balcony at Lucerne. 437

But I was powerless to move ; the hand stretched out in front of me,

as I lay with my ear close down to the open-work at the edge of the

balustrade, had become entangled in the decorative fretwork, and I

could not withdraw my wrist. A sharp-pointed, spike-like ornament

pierced the flesh as I strove to rise. An agony of mind and body

overcoming me, with a wrench and an irresistible groan of pain I, at

last, freed my arm to find myself — in bed !

******

Had it all been a dream then — the whole affair, my first experience
no less than the second ? No, I could not, would not credit an
hypothesis so humiliating, so absurd !

Springing out of bed, and going to the window, plainly discernible
now through the obscurity of the room by reason of the summer
dawn, I stepped on to the balcony, to find everything as quiet as the
grave. The Swiss are an early people, but they scarcely begin to stir
so soon as three in the morning, and that hour rang out from a
neighbouring church clock whilst I gazed. A matter-of-fact man
would have shrugged his shoulders, apostrophised himself as an ass,
and gone back to bed with the conviction that his supper had
disagreed with him. The apostrophe might have been deserved in
this case, but the conviction which rose in my mind was of a different
character. I was convinced, as thoroughly as I ever was of anything
in my life, that the scene I had witnessed was a reality and no dream ;
that the filing sound I had heard was no distempered nervous grating
in the brain, and that the wrench and struggle by which I freed my
imprisoned hand was no distorted mental effort born of mysterious
nightmare. In proof whereof, behold my wrist, scored, wounded, and
bleeding still !

I partially dressed myself. My limbs at least w^ere free, and there
was nothing to prevent me from descending to that lower balcony as
I had proposed in my dre

What am I saying ? You will laugh, and think I have committed
myself. Not at all. Two minutes more saw me carrying out my
purpose. It offered little mechanical difficulty. The whole fabric of
the light ornamental iron-work composing the balconies from the
highest to the lowest was connected by upright supports running from
one to the other. Agile, active, and strong as I was in those days, I
soon contrived, without danger, to slide down one of the thin iron
columns, to find myself on /ler balcony, in front of her window.

Before turning to the object which had really led me to take this
step, I could not help peeping in through the closed, but only partially-
curtained, French casement. A faint light was burning, sufficient
dimly to reveal the interior, and to show me the occupant asleep upon
her couch. A flickering ray fell upon her fair cheek, and the loosened
tresses of her luxuriant bronze-toned hair straying upon her pillow.
One hand and arm, freed from clothing, lay extended over the coverlet,
supine, motionless, and pure as alabaster. I could have gazed at the

43^ A Balcony at Lucerne.

fair picture in rapt delight for many a minute, had I not been recalled
by such sense of honour as I possessed to the recollection of the
purpose I had in view. But for this purpose there could have been no
warrant for the intrusion I was making on her privacy.

To turn my back upon the window cost me an effort \ but resolution
is said to be a valuable and commendable quality in man, if not in
woman ; and I think and hope I am gifted with a fair share of it. By
its aid I bent my attention to an examination of the top rail of the
balustrade. In the centre one long bar extended between the two
upright pillars, down one of which I had descended. Against the
corroded rusty end impinging on this it was that she had leant for
such a length of time — the night before ? — well, Heaven knows !
Whenever it was it seemed that it could not have been long since ; I
do not know. But this I know, that as I peered down on the end of
that iron bar, I discovered by the fast increasing daylight that it had
been filed almost through ! — filed I must call it, but the separation in
a similar bar of wood would have looked as if it had been sawn — to
within the eighth of an inch of separation.

Below this rail there was a space of more than a foot ere any firm
protection to the balcony existed. The result to any one resting their
weight inadvertently on the upper bar therefore became instantly
obvious. It would have snapped like matchwood, and no earthly
power could have saved one from being precipitated headlong from
this fearful height into the tearing river !

This was the scoundrel's trap, set with diabolical cunning ; and
there, hard by, lay his intended victim, sleeping calmly, and little
recking of the peril in which the villain had placed her ; dreaming,
perchance, some delightful dream, as her half-parted, half-smiling lips
suggested. Yes ; but surely you will not tell me that I too had been
dreaming ?

Before swarming up to my own domain again, two things had to be
done — first, to examine the other and farther end of the iron bar ;
secondly, to warn the unconscious sleeper of her danger, or, at least,
make it apparent by some means. Both terminations had been
treated alike, as I expected to find, except that the cut in the other
was not quite so deep ; otherwise it might have yielded to the pressure
of her resting, trustful arms too soon. This fact, however, defeated
its own object, for it yielded to my by no means trustful arms and
hands ; and, with but a slight wrench, I broke it off, and removed it
entirely, leaving the front of the balcony quite unprotected.

It had not taken me long to decide on this course of action, for
although I am a meditative, slow, easy-going fellow by nature, I have,
when called upon by emergency to act, a knack of doing so promptly.
With the treacherous bar removed entirely, the danger was removed
also, for no one could approach the window without seeing the gap,
much less step on to the balcony.

So then, placing the piece of iron conspicuously and half-upright

A Balcony at Lucerne. 439

against some of the fretwork, and taking one momentary and final
peep at the sleeping beauty, I scaled the column again and was soon
back on my own floor. But it was broad daylight by this time, and
the question arose — had I been observed ?

Broad daylight? Yes, but a dull, grey, leaden daylight, without a
tinge of the " russet-mantled mo'-n " anywhere visible. A chill and
fitful wind swept down from the direction of the lake, and one or two
pattering drops of heavy rain were falling now and again. Storm-
forging Pilatus had set his bellows to work, and the blows on his anvil
were beginning to resound in distant peals of muttering thunder.
The oppressive heat of the preceding evening presaged this, but the
actual brewing of the tempest took place with magical quickness.
Sometimes the grim mountain monster has a knack of turning out
such specimens of his weird skill with amazing rapidity ; and ere I had
been five minutes in my room, he had completed his handiwork.
Violent floods of rain descended ; the sudden hurricane set lattice and
jalousie creaking and banging ; incessant flashes of vivid lightning
flushed the atmosphere, now again almost as dark as night ; and the
"dread, rattling thunder" seemed to shake the very foundations of
the earth. In a moment one terrific crash just overhead appeared to
strike the house, and caused me involuntarily to close and retreat from
the window.

As I looked out again after a minute, I saw that, indeed, a bolt must
have fallen and struck some of the ironwork of these balconies. One
of the columns rising to the topmost floor was twisted, seared, melted
almost at its base where it passed out of sight. The rain, however,
continuing to pour incessantly, I could not satisfy my curiosity by
stepping outside to see how far the mischief extended, but I felt that
something more serious had happened below, and the rain went on in
a continuous deluge literally for hours. I heard its never-ceasing
downpour long after I had thrown myself upon the bed, tired and
fevered, and I heard it still going on, when, after a heavy sleep, I
awoke, to find by my watch it was past noon.

Sleeping again, you will say ; of course the whole affair is a dream
and nothing else.

Wait a little, we shall see.

Some commotion was taking place in the house. Hurrying foot-
steps and quick-speaking voices reached my ear from below stairs, and
going some way down, I hailed the concierge^ who was amongst the
group of people gathered on the lower landing. He came up to me,
with a pale face and scared eyes.

"Monsieur has not heard?" he exclaimed. "Ah, no! Indeed,
then, monsieur must have been sleeping soundly. A terrible calamity
has happened — the lightning has struck Madame's balcony here on
the quatrieme, and demolished it. How its remains hold together still
is a marvel ; most of it has fallen and the rest must soon follow."

440 A Balcony at Lttccrne.

" Madame is not hurt, I hope ? " I asked anxiously.

" No, by God's mercy, no one is hurt ! " he answered. " And now
that the storm has abated, workmen will arrive to repair and prevent
farther danger. But monsieur will be well advised not to trust himself
on his own balcony. It has no support from below at one end — one
of the columns has disappeared.

This was the fact, and with the destruction of the ironwork had
disappeared the evidence of what I had done to save the lady from
falling into that trap set by the rejected suitor.

Once more, you will say, here is further proof that I had been
dreaming. I can show you nothing to the contrary, you will declare.
Perhaps not, but the lady was no dream, for I saw her twice again —
the next day and the next.

And the next was for the last time, for when I last looked on that
fair face and form, it was lying stretched out on some planks in the
shed which, at Lucerne, did duty for the morgue, dead ! Drowned ?
Yes, recovered from the lake, but not drowned to death, as a deep
wound from the blade of a poignard, in the region of the heart, only
too plainly testified.

Some peasants that same day, towards nightfall, had seen the body
floating near the town, and pushing out in a boat, had brought it
ashore. No suspicion of foul play was at first aroused, but a little
later a man was observed on the bank by a gendarme, washing a long
knife stained with blood. This circumstance, in conjunction with the
discovery of the poor woman, which of course had caused great excite-
ment throughout the community, led to his apprehension, and as I
was leaving the shed, I met the prisoner being taken to the place,
under a strong guard, in order to confront him with the victim — a
customary proceeding according to the Continental system of criminal
investigation. One glance at the accused was sufficient for me : I
immediately recognized the tall, lithe Italian !

Some six months later he was executed at Berne.

Esther was Summoned.

[Frotttisfiece.

i

THE ARGOSY,

DECEMBER, i8g2.

A GUILTY SILENCE.

CHAPTER XLV

MARGARET AND ESTHER.

THE first month after her return from her wedding-tour was to
Margaret Bruhn a time full of anguish and soul-wearing anxiety.
She had a double burden to bear. There was, first, the imprisonment
of Esther Sarel, and next, the strange disappearance of Trix. Her
trouble, as regarded Esther, was a secret one which she was obliged
to hide carefully even from those she loved best. Her trouble, as
regarded her sister, was one which her husband and father could
share with her, and the listless melancholy and sad pre-occupation of
manner to which Margaret was a prey at this time, were thus naturally
accounted for.

A week after her first visit, Margaret went to Ackworthing again,
and again she was permitted to see Esther alone. Mr. Davenant
accompanied her on this second visit, and condescended to partake
of the governor's dry sherry, and to entertain that gentleman with
some reminiscences of polite society, during the time his daughter was
closeted with the prisoner.

Margaret's second interview with Esther was of a less painful
character than her first one. The conditions of the case were known
to her. She had tacitly agreed to accept circumstances as they were ;
to allow Esther to accomplish the sacrifice which she had initiated of
her own free will ; to enact the unheroic part, and leave to another
the buskin in which she herself was afraid to tread. Esther was her
scapegoat, who had gone out into the wilderness to perish, while she
remained in her tent beneath the palms.

At that second interview, Esther was by much the more cheerful
of the two. It was she who consoled and strengthened Margaret,
whose humiliation of soul was extreme. Margaret, with her head
resting on Esther's shoulder, wept many bitter tears. All Esther's
tears seemed to have been shed long ago. There was about her
manner now a serenity and elevation which made her seem quite a

VOL. LIV. 2 D

442 A Guilty Silence.

different person from the Esther of old times, and lifted her, morally,
to a height that made her Margaret's superior. And Margaret felt
the superiority, although Esther might not, and knew that the
intangible something she had forfeited could never be hers again.

But a fortnight was now wanting to complete the term of Esther's
imprisonment. It was arranged that Mrs. Bruhn should meet her
outside the prison gates at ten o'clock on the morning of her
release. Margaret was already in negotiation with certain friends of
hers with the view of obtaining a situation for Esther as soon as she
should be at liberty, for Esther would not go back to Helsingham,
although Mrs. Bruhn would gladly have taken her into her own
house.

" I could not bear it. Miss Margaret," Esther said. " I could not
bear to go back to the old place, at least not just yet awhile. It will
be far better for me to go among strangers who will never know that I
have been in prison. Then again, Mr. Bruhn might not like to have
me in his house ; and I should be looked down upon by the other
servants, and all your kindness could hardly save me from being
insulted twenty times a day. No — I will go away, please — a long
way off, where I shall never see a face that I have known before."

As Esther wished, so it was arranged, and the situation was ready
for her on the day of her release. It was in a quiet country town
nearly a hundred miles from Helsingham, and with a family on
whose kindness and consideration for those under them Margaret
could thoroughly rely.

Margaret longed for the morning of Esther's release even more
than Esther herself did. When Esther's imprisonment should have
become a thing of the past, Mrs. Bruhn thought that her conscience
would probably cease to trouble her so frequently ; that as time went
on, her feeling of self-abasement would become less acute ; that
inward peace, and even happiness, might be hers again in years to
come. When Esther should be at liberty, the penalty demanded
by society would have been paid in full, and in no possible way
could her crime be brought home to her. The matter would
then rest entirely between herself and Esther, and if Esther were
satisfied, who else in all the wide world had any right or reason to
complain ?

When the wished-for morning arrived, Margaret was driven over to
Ackworthing by her father, and reached that town a full hour earlier
than was needful. Leaving Mr. Davenant to his own devices, she
hired a cab, and waited inside it, close by the prison gates, till the
clock struck ten, and Esther Sarel issued forth. Esther's first glance
round showed her Mrs. Bruhn beckoning to her from the cab window.
Margaret kissed her as tenderly as though Esther had been her own
sister when the latter got into the cab.

" Thank Heaven ! this day has come at last ! " cried Mrs. Bruhn
fervently, as she held Esther's hand tight within her own. " Ah

A Guilty Silence. 443

child, the suffering has not been all on your side. Even cowards
have consciences that can sting shrewdly at times."

They drove to an hotel, where Margaret had ordered breakfast in a
private room.

" Miss Margaret," said Esther, when the servant had brought in the
tray and left the room, " I was your servant once on a time, not very
long ago. It will seem to bring back the old days if you will let me
wait on you just once again as I used to do."

" You wait on me, Esther ! It is I who ought to wait on you.
You are my guest this morning — pray understand that. And both
now and for ever you are my friend — the one who has done and
suffered more for me than all my other friends put together. Sit ;
and this morning it shall be I who will wait upon you."

Esther's further protests were useless ; Margaret would have her
own way in the matter ; but neither of them had much appetite for
breakfast, and the meal was quickly over. When the table was
cleared, they drew their chairs close up to the fire, for the weather
was bitterly cold, and they had many things to say to each other.

" Esther, did you have any message from, or hear anything of
Silas Ringe while you were in prison ? " asked Margaret presently,
almost in a whisper.

" No, Miss Margaret ; he has been as far removed from me as if
he were dead," answered Esther, while a slight flush mounted to her
face. " Indeed, I have come to regard him in my thoughts as though
the silence of the grave were really set between us. Silas chose to
leave me, and I could not call him back. But I think there are
worse things in life than losing those we love, whether it be by death
or desertion. When I saw before me what I thought was my duty, I
determined to do it, however hard it might be. If I had let it go
by without heeding, and had afterwards married Silas, I could never,
never have been happy."

" Would that we could all think as you think, and cling to duty as
our greatest earthly good ! " cried Margaret in tones of infinite sadness.

" I will confess to you, Miss Margaret, that Silas's desertion of me
(though I could not blame him for doing as he did) seemed to me
harder to bear than anything else. It seemed to me that if I had
only had his love to uphold me, everything else would have been easy
to bear. But itj was not to be. In prison I had much time for
thought, for working these things out in my own mind ; and by-and-
by, after a long struggle, I began to see more clearly, and to feel and
know the blessed truth that all things work together for our good.
Then, little by little, a great peace seemed to settle down over my
heart, and I could bear to think calmly and lovingly of Silas as of one
whom I should never see again in this world, but whom I might hope
to see elsewhere, when our hearts shall be purged of all earthly
passions, and filled only with that divine and ineffable love, whose
source and origin is God."

2 D 2

444 -^ Guilty Silence,

About two o'clock, according to arrangement, Mr. Davenant
arrived at the hotel with the wagonette, and Margaret and Esther
were driven by him to the Monkwell station, where Esther's little
luggage, which had been sent from Miss Easterbrook's, was awaiting
her. The two women walked the little platform arm-in-arm till the
arrival of the train. Then Margaret threw up her veil and kissed
Esther with tears in her eyes ; and Esther, smiling pensively, gently
returned the kiss.

" Heaven bless you, and have you ever in its safe keeping, dear
Miss Margaret ! " she said ; and then Mr. Davenant, with kindly
officiousness, hustled Esther into the train, and in another minute she
was gone.

Mrs. Bruhn went back to Helsingham, sad at heart, but with a
burden of care lifted off her mind. She seemed to breathe more
freely than she had done from the moment she heard of Esther's
imprisonment. Surely now, at last, that wretched business of the
stolen letter would be allowed to sleep. It had been expiated in full,
and ought now to be buried out of sight for ever. That other great
source of trouble arising from the unaccountable disappearance of her
sister was still left her, and it was a trouble that made itself felt more
poignantly from day to day, as the prospect of Trix's return or
recovery seemed to grow more remote. However, as we have already
seen, this trouble resolved itself into sunshine a little later on, so that
there is no further occasion to speak of it here.

So Margaret strove sedulously to persuade herself that happiness
was hers at last.

Taking all things into consideration, there seemed no reason why
Mrs. Bruhn should not be happy. Or, if not happy, at least content,
which is our nineteenth century version of a word with whose real
meaning but few of us are more than vaguely acquainted. But even
Content, mild of mien and gentle-eyed though she be, loves best to
come unwooed. To those who seek her through her elder sister, Duty,
she comes oftenest and stays with them longest : to those who court
her for herself alone, she rarely vouchsafes more than a passing smile.

Margaret Bruhn was not even content.

If she had cared less entirely for her husband, if he had been in
any way less w^orthy of her, the secret trouble smouldering low down
in her heart would probably have burnt itself out in time, and have
left nothing but a pinch of ashes and a faint odour of regrets, like the
perfume of withered rose-leaves, behind. But Mr. Bruhn was one of
those men whom it is impossible to love half-heartedly. His wife's
devotion to him was complete and thorough, and it was the very
depth of this devotion that taught her to feel her own unworthiness
so keenly. On her conscience there lay a secret which if told him
would cause her to forfeit his love for ever ; and because of the
penalty which the telling of it would entail upon her, her conscience
kept urging her more and more, even while she was most jealously

A Guilty Silence. 445

guarding it, to keep it hidden no longer — to cast the poisonous thing
from her, and be whole again, however great the cost might be.

But time passed on — weeks and months — and Margaret Bruhn
still delayed to do the one thing needful. She declared to herself
again and again that she would nof do it — would not sacrifice her
dearest earthly possessions for the sake of an " unknown good."
Silence had been purchased for her at a terrible price. Would it not
be the height of absurdity, nay, even the height of madness, to
declare that purchase void and of no avail ?

All that she had to do was to keep her own counsel, and in time
everything would go well with her. As for those troublesome voices,
those inward monitors which spoke to her in the still hours of life,
she determined to heed them not, but so to fill and occupy her
round of days that in the whirring of many diverse wheels, their low
grave tones should no longer smite the outward ear, even though
some inner sense might tell her that they were still there, and only
biding their time to make themselves heard again.

Thus it fell out that Margaret Bruhn was not ^uUe happy.

CHAPTER XLVL

SILAS RINGE'S return.

Eight months had come and gone since the day of Esther Sard's
release from Ackworthing gaol, and another summer had faded into
autumn. Mrs. Bruhn had frequent news from Esther, who, judging
from her letters, was thoroughly comfortable, and content in the
situation which Margaret had found for her. Margaret, not generally
the most punctual of correspondents, never failed to answer Esther's
letters within a post or two after her receipt of them. On neither
side was mention ever made of the secret which drew these two
women so closely together ; it was never so much as hinted at ;
neither did the name of Silas Ringe find a place in their corres-
pondence.

Business interests took Mr. Bruhn from Helsingham four or five
times a year. Sometimes his visits were to London, sometimes they
extended to the Continent, to the manufacturing towns of France and
the Low Countries. Towards the end of October he started on one
of his more extended journeys, expecting to be nearly a fortnight
away. On the third evening after his departure, as Margaret was
sitting in the library engaged in making some extracts from a moth-
eaten chronicle in which mention was made of Helsingham as early
as the eleventh century, one of the servants announced that an old
woman was waiting to see her, who refused to mention either her
name or her business, but who insisted upon seeing Mrs. Bruhn.

" Show her in," said Margaret ; and presently a very old and

44^ ^ Guilty Silence.

skinny woman was ushered into the librar)', who made Mrs. Bruiin a
respectful curtsey, and then waited to be spoken to.

Margaret's first care was to make the old lady sit down, an object
that was not accomplished without some difficulty, the chairs being
evidently considered by her as of too ornamental a character to be
used after the ordinary fashion of such articles. Then, and not till
then, did Margaret inquire the object of her visit.

" I've come, ma'am, from Silas Ringe, who's lying at my house,
struck for death."

As soon as Margaret could compose her voice, which was not for
several moments, for the very mention of Silas Ringe's name struck a
chill to her heart, she said, " And what is it that Mr. Ringe wishes me
to do ? "

" He wants to see his old sweetheart, Esther Sarel, before he dies.
He thought that you might, maybe, know where she is, and would
send for her. The wench must be here soon if she's to see Silas
alive, for the poor lad's time in this world is short."

" I know where Esther Sarel is living, and will telegraph for her
without delay ; but she can hardly reach Helsingham before ten or
eleven to-morrow morning."

" It will be a miracle, ma'am, if poor Silas lasts out till that time."

" I will write out a message at once," said Mrs. Bruhn, " and will
send it down to the station by a mounted messenger. How long has
Silas Ringe been at your house ? "

" Three weeks come to-morrow. He looked very worn and ill when
he came, and next day he was struck down with the fever that has
been so bad all the summer at our end of the town ; and now the
doctors say, that though the fever's left him, he's sunk so low that they
can't bring him round."

" Poor, poor fellow ! How I wish that you had come to me when
he was first taken ill."

" Eh, but, ma'am, how was I to know ? I suppose he come to my
house because his mother and me had been old friends, and I'm sure
he was as welcome as the day to the spare shakedown in the little top
room. But he never spoke about wanting to see anybody, being
proud and sullen like, even when his fever was at the height, and it
wasn't till he thought the doctors had given him up that he axed me
to come to you and inquire about Esther."

Mrs. Bruhn left the room to despatch the message which she had
been hastily writing while the old woman was talking to her,

" I will go back with you to your house," she said on her return.
" In case Esther Sarel should not arrive in time to see him alive, it
will comfort her to know that I was with him during his last moments."

" Law ! ma'am, my house is not the sort of place for the likes of
you," exclaimed the old crone ; " besides, they do say the fever's
catching, but it hasn't took me yet, thank goodness ! though I've
waited on the poor lad night and day since he were took bad."

A Guilty Silence. 447

" I pmsf go with you," said Margaret. " I should never forgive
myself afterwards, were I to neglect doing so. As far as money can
repay you for what you have done to Silas Ringe, you shall be amply
compensated. You must allow me ten minutes for changing my
dress ; meanwhile, I hope you will have something to eat and
drink."

A cab took Mrs. Bruhn and the old woman to a corner of the
street in which the latter lived. On the way, Margaret satisfied her-
self that nothing had been wanting in the case of Silas on the score
of good medical advice. The old woman, whose name proved to be
Mrs. Dearlove — which she pronounced as though it were a word of
two unconnected syllables — gave her the names of the two doctors
who had attended Silas, both of whom Margaret knew to be experi-
enced men.

The neighbourhood in which Mrs. Dearlove lived was a very low
and wretched one, so low and wretched, in fact, that Mrs. Bruhn was
quite unaware that anything like it existed in Helsingham. Had she
seen it by daylight, it would have seemed still worse, but some of its
most repulsive features were hidden by the darkness, only faintly
broken here and there by a sickly lamp.

Silas was lying on a truckle-bed in a top room of the little low-
roofed house. With many aspects of illness Margaret was by no
means unfamiliar ; but she thought, as she entered the room where
the young carpenter lay, that she had never seen any one who
presented an appearance so utterly deathlike while still among the
living. He seemed literally to be nothing but skin and bone ; only,
the skin was yellow parchment. He was too weak to lift a hand, or
even to move his head without assistance ; and he lay on his back, as
immovable, except for the slow, laboured heavings of his chest, as
one stretched for the grave. But his wide-open eyes looked bigger
than ever they had done before, and shone with a light that seemed
to have been kindled beyond the stars. He rolled them unceasingly
from side to side of the little room, but apparently without any
recognition of the actual objects before him, seeing some inner vision,
it may be, but whether of the past or the future no mortal save him-
self would ever know.

Margaret's heart seemed to weep tears of blood as she gazed on the
wreck before her. For the first time, she seemed to comprehend at
a glance the whole series of events resulting from her one crime, as
they followed each other in accordance with that sequential law which
governs all our actions, good and bad, oftentimes making the event
of to-day the result of something which happened yesterday, or a
year ago, although we ourselves may be too purblind to distinguish
the fine thread that knots up one with the other.

" Silas, honey ! " said Mrs. Dearlove, bending over the sick man ;
" Silas, honey ! here's a lady come to see thee."

But Silas took not the slightest notice. The big luminous eyes

44^ ^ Guilty Silence.

still rolled steadily from side to side, as though they were watching
the vibrations of some gigantic pendulum, visible to them alone.

" Poor darling ! he don't hear me," said the old woman to Mrs.
Bruhn. Then, in a louder voice, she addressed the sick man in the
same terms as before. This time the familiar voice seemed to pierce
his clouded senses, bringing him back from the very edge of the
grave. It was strange, and at the same time inexpressibly touching,
to watch the unsteady eyes steady themselves flickeringly ; to mark
the slow dawn of recognition creep painfully over the pallid face,
till at length, as if an unseen angel had touched the sick man's eyes
with his torch, there leapt into them a sudden flash, and Earth
claimed him as her own again, to have and to hold for a little time
longer.

" Where's Esther ? I want Esther ! " he said in a low clear whisper ;
and his burning eyes devoured the faces of jMargaret and the old
woman.

" She's been sent for, honey, by this kind lady. She's not living in
the town now, but she's been sent for, and she'll be here in the
morning."

" She must come soon," whispered the sick man, " or she \\411 not
find me here. Just now I fancied that she and I were out walking
together in the fields, as we used to do on Sunday evenings in sum-
mer. I felt her hand on my arm as plain as ever I felt anything in
my life ; and there was a sprig of old-man in my button-hole ; I seem
to smell it now."

He had not appeared to notice Margaret before, but now his eyes
wandered to her face, and rested there inquiringly. " This is the
lady, Silas, that Esther used to live with. She would come to see
thee, and it's she that's sent for Esther."

" Miss Davenant ? " murmured Silas interrogatively.

"Yes, I am Miss Davenant," said Margaret, seating herself on a
low stool by the edge of the bed. " You must forgive my intruding
on you, but when I heard how ill you were, I could not help coming
to see for myself whether I could not be of service to you in some
way, and also to assure you that Esther has been telegraphed for, and
will doubtless be here early in the morning."

"Ah, my Esther used always to be fond of you," said Silas, as
though communing more with his own thoughts than attending to
what Margaret had said. " I remember. Yes. Nothing is forgotten
— nothing." He lapsed into silence, and his eyes began to wander a
little, as though he heard dream-voices calUng him back to the land
of shadows and forgetfulness.

" How I wish I could do something for you," said Margaret.
" Were it only till Esther shall arrive, and be able to take my place
near you." There was a tone of unmistakable sympathy in her soft,
clear voice. Silas's eyes steadied themselves again, and he came back
to earthly things with a little sigh.

A Guilty Silence, 449

" Yes, my Esther was very fond of you," he murmured again,
" Last time I saw her, she was in prison, poor child ! and I left her in
her trouble, like the mean coward that I was. I acted like a cur — a
cur ; I, who used to fancy that I had the makings of a gentleman in
me. A wretched, low-bred cur ! "

Here there came a slight interruption. A fresh bottle of medicine
was brought by the doctor's boy, which Mrs. Dearlove at once opened
and tasted approvingly. " Take a drop of it at once, honey," she
said. " It's grand stuff."

So Silas took a draught, and it revived him wonderfully.
" Just you give me a good shake, if you please, ma'am, if I happen
to be asleep as you go out," said the old woman in a low voice to
Mrs. Bruhn ; and then she went downstairs to snatch a little sleep by
the fire.

" That was a strange, strange story that Esther told me in prison,"
began Silas, as if merely following out the current of his own
thoughts ; " and one that I have never been able to understand.
Guilty, and yet not guilty. How is it possible to reconcile such a
contradiction ? " He paused ; then, looking up suddenly at Margaret,
he said : " Can you reconcile it for me. Miss Davenant ? "

Margaret's pale face grew paler, and her soul seemed to shrink
within her like a hunted criminal on whom the finger of Justice is
about to be laid ; but she answered not a word.

" Do yot^ believe her guilty, Miss Davenant? Do you believe that
she stole the letter?"

" I do not. I firmly believe her to have been innocent."
" That is what she herself said. She said, ' I am innocent ; but
the world must believe me guilty.' If she was innocent, why was she
afraid to say so ? Why did she allow herself to be put in prison for
a crime that she had never committed, without making at least some
effort to clear herself? It's all a weary puzzle to me."

He sighed heavily, and closed his eyes, as though he would fain
shut out the world and its troubles for ever. What could Margaret
say ? How could she pour balm over the bruised heart of the dying
man ? She could not give him back the life, and love, and happiness
that might have been his had that fatal letter never been touched.
All that she could do was to brighten, in some measure, his last few
moments on earth ; and how little that was to do, in comparison
with the evil that had wrought itself out, from a single wrong action,
in consequences that would not merely influence the whole of her
own life, but had already recoiled with such terrible force on the
heads of at least two innocent persons !

But even the little that it lay in her power to do to sweeten the
last hours of poor Silas, could only be accomplished by the sacrifice
of that secret which both she and Esther had striven with such bitter
pains to keep a secret for ever. That it must be sacrificed, she at
once decided. Enough pain and misery had been incurred on her

450 A Guilty Silence.

account ; and, although she was powerless to alter the past, there was
one sure mode of preventing the gangrene from spreading further.
She must tell the truth. And during those minutes, while Margaret
Bruhn sat by the bed of the sinking man, almost in the very presence
of the Angel of Death, a consciousness came over her that it would
be better for her to lose the love and esteem of all who were dear to
her, better to lose husband and home, than let her life remain any
longer an acted lie — a fair surface, hiding that below which must in
time poison the whole system beyond any possible cure. This was
the consciousness that came over her, or rather, the revelation that
was granted her — a revelation of the higher life, to attain to which
she must leave the green slothful valley in which she had been
sojourning, and pass with bare feet over the burning ploughshares,
and into the desert beyond, where no green thing is, but where at
times come faint w^hispers of encouragement, and sweet cooling winds
that fill the soul with divine rapture, so that the heavenly gates seem
nearer than of old, and the hills on which God sits for ever.

" Silas ! " said Margaret, kneeling by the side of the bed, and
pressing one of the sick man's wasted hands in both hers — " Silas ! I
believe Esther to have been entirely innocent of stealing the letter.
I know her to have been so ! "

Silas's fingers clutched those of Margaret convulsively. "It is you
who tell me this, you who knew her so well ? " he cried. " Oh !
there must be some truth in it, there must be ! You would not dare
to deceive a dying man. But why is not Esther here ? Why does
she not come and tell me all about it ? I want to hear my darling tell
me with her own lips that she did not take the letter."

" A few hours will bring her to your side, and then she shall tell
you, as I tell you now, that she was as innocent as you are of what
was laid to her charge."

" But why could she not say so on her trial ? I read the account
of it in the papers ; and it said there that she pleaded guilty.
There's some mystery in it all that's past my power of finding out ? "

" Esther sacrificed herself in order to save some one else," said
Margaret in a voice that was hardly raised above a whisper.

" You know that ? You are telling me the truth ? " cried Silas
eagerly ; and as if Margaret's words had lent him new energy, he
raised himself on one elbow, and stared into her white face with
eager burning eyes.

"What I am teUing you is the solemn truth," said Margaret.
"Take comfort from my words, and "

" Too late ! too late ! " said Silas mournfully. " If I had but
known this at the time, I should not have left her as I did. If she
had but trusted me ! But she did not, and my wretched pride made
me desert her ; and now I am here, and your words have come
too late."

Margaret had slipped down by the side of the bed, and buried her

A Guilty Silence. 451

face in her hands. " I am a murderess," she kept repeating to
herself, and those few words told the whole burden of her thoughts.
The pathos of Silas's " too late " pierced her dark mood, and she
burst into tears. Her sobs broke the reverie into which Silas had
fallen during the last few moments. He looked at her curiously.

" Since the strange fact you have just told me is so well known to
you," he said, " you are no doubt acquainted with the name of the
person for whose sake my Esther was allowed to sacrifice herself and
me ? "

" I am," moaned Margaret through her tears.

" Tell me the name of that person," said Silas.

" Margaret Davenant ! "

The words seemed to be torn from her by main force, and as she
spoke them she flung up her clenched hands, and seemed to call
Heaven to witness that her wretched secret was a secret no longer.

The temporary strength lent him by his medicine, and by the
excitement of talking with Margaret, was fast deserting Silas, and he
sank back on his pillow with a low groan of mingled pain and
weakness. For a little while he lay utterly silent, and with closed
eyes, except for his laboured breathing, like one already dead.
Presently his eyes opened, and in them was a fierce baleful light, like
that which shone in them when he spurned Esther from him in the
prison as a guilty creature on whom he would never look more. By
an almost superhuman effort he raised himself in bed, and stretching
over, laid a bony hand on Margaret's shoulder. " Wretched woman ! "
he began in a voice that was as loud, clear, and distinct as if he had
been in full health, " it was for your sake, then, to save you from
detection, that the happiness of two people was ruthlessly destroyed ;
that one of them was branded as a thief before the world, and the
other rendered so miserable that death seemed better to him than
life ! You, the superfine lady, were the real thief, and that poor girl
was merely your scapegoat ! You could let her be taken up, and put
into prison, and suffer the punishment that you ought to have
suffered, and all without so much as lifting a finger to try to save
her ! You had the heart and the conscience to allow this ! "

" Hear me for one moment," pleaded Margaret through her tears.
" I was away, out of England, at the time the discovery was made.
That Esther took the blame and the punishment on herself in order
to save me, is quite true, but it was done without my knowledge or
sanction. I say this not to lessen in the slightest degree the nobility
of Esther's action, but to prove to you that I am not so deeply to
blame as may at first sight appear. I knew nothing of what Esther
had done for me, I did not even know that the letter had been dis-
covered, till after my return to England, which was not till Esther's
imprisonment was within a fortnight of being over."

" Woman ! " cried Silas sternly — and his long, lean fingers griped
her by the shoulder till she could not repress a low cry of agony —

452 A Guilty Silence.

" woman ! do you know what it was your duty to have done — your
bare duty, and nothing more ? Yes, you know it just as well as I
can tell you. You know that the first hour of your knowledge ought
to have been the last of Esther's imprisonment. But how much
longer is this lie to be believed by the world ? How much longer is
my poor girl to be held as a thief, and compelled to find a home far
away from all who know her ? How much longer, I ask, shall this
foul wrong remain unrighted ? "

" No longer — no longer ! " cried Margaret. " This very night it
shall be told — told to those whose love and esteem I value beyond
aught else on earth."

" How am I to know that you are not lying to me ? Swear, by all
that you hold most holy, that you will not let another sun rise till you
have told the whole truth about this cursed matter ! "

" I swear it, by all that I hold most holy ! " said Margaret
solemnly.

" I shall die, but my Esther will live. Her character will be
cleared, and will shine out brighter than before. But all this comes
too late to give me back the happiness and love that ought to have
been mine — too late to mend my broken life ! "

These last words died away in a whisper that was almost inaudible.
He sank back on his pillow ; an expression of awe ineffable crept like
a shadowy veil over his features ; his eyes filmed ; he murmured
something faintly ; a light foam gathered on his lips ; a shiver passed
through him twice from head to foot ; and Silas Ringe was no longer
among the living.

CHAPTER XLVH.

THE REEL V\^OUND UP.

" Gone is he, poor dear ? " said Mrs. Dearlove coolly, as she hobbled
upstairs in answer to Margaret's cry. " The doctor's last words to me
were, that he might go off any minute. No use fetching anybody at
this time of the night. All the doctors in the three kingdoms couldn't
bring him back to us for five seconds. He'll make a lovely corpse,
poor lad ! "

As soon as Margaret could get out of the house of death, she
hurried home as though wings had been added to her feet. By this
time it was close upon midnight, and the little town was abed. She
scarcely met a soul all the way as she went. The servant, an old
family one, who let her in stared at her, and ventured to ask if she
were well.

" No, she was not ill, only tired," she said ; and she ordered a light
to be taken into the library, and gave orders that no one need sit up
any longer. Having bathed her hands and face, she sat down to
write. She would not trust herself to reflect upon the promise she

A Guilty Silence. 453

had made to Silas Ringe ; she would act upon it without a moment's
delay. Her first letter was addressed to Sir Richard Ashburnham,
the magistrate before whom Esther Sarel had been first examined,
and by whom she had been committed for trial. Resting her head in
her hands for a little while, till she had succeeded in collecting her
thoughts sufficiently to enable her to put into quiet, commonplace
language what she had to say, she at length dipped her pen in the
inkstand, and wrote as under : —

" Dear Sir Richard, — It may probably be within your recollection
that about eleven months ago a girl, Esther Sarel by name, who had
acted in the capacity of my maid during the time I was at Irongate
House, was brought before you charged with having stolen a certain
letter from the Helsingham post-office. The letter in question had
been sent from Australia, and was addressed to Mr. Hugh Randolph,
a surgeon of this town, who since that time has become my brother-
in-law. The letter was found hidden away in an ebony casket
belonging to me, which had been stolen some time previously from
Irongate House ; and it — the casket — was afterwards found in some
fields outside the town with the letter still intact in a secret drawer.
Both Esther and I had been in the post-office (in the sorting-room)
the same evening that the letter was missed, and it seemed certain
that either she or I must have taken it. When Mr. Dawkins came to
inquire into the affair, he was induced, from Esther's manner, to set
her down as the guilty person. He accused her of having stolen the
letter, and she at once confessed that she had done so. With the
result you are acquainted. Esther was brought before you next day,
and committed for trial, and when that event came off, she was
sentenced to four months' imprisonment.

" Both before you, and before the judge who tried her, Esther
Sarel confessed to having stolen the letter. And yet that confession
was wholly untrue. She did not steal the letter ; she did not even
know of its having been stolen till accused by Mr. Dawkins. I, and
I alone, was the thief.

" Into the motives by which I was actuated when I took the
letter it is not needful that I should enter here. I may, however,
state that it was not taken with the expectation of finding money in
it (I have not sunk quite so low as that), but merely to keep back for
a short time from the person to whom it was addressed a certain piece
of information with which I had accidentally become acquainted.

" The letter was found, and the arrest of Esther Sarel took place,
the day after I left England on my wedding tour. Not the slightest
intimation of the affair reached my ears till my return, more than
three months later, by which time Esther Sard's imprisonment was
within a fortnight of its expiration. I at once sought an interview
with her in prison, and I then ascertained, for the first time, by what
motives she had been influenced in taking on herself the guilt of a

454 ^ Guilty Silence.

transaction of which she was entirely innocent. She had done it to
save me — done it out of gratitude for a few acts of simple kindness
shown towards her mother when she lay ill, and towards a youthful
brother and sister after the mother's death. Does this seem incre-
dible to you ? Read and believe. I write nothing but the simple
truth. The antique virtues are not extinct ; they can flourish even in
the bosom of a servant-girl.

" The result of my interview with Esther was simply this : that
Esther remained in prison to work out the term of her sentence,
while I went back home, and spoke no word to any one of the secret
that lay so heavily on my life.

" That it should remain a secret was agreed between Esther and
myself. She was noble enough to entreat that it should be so, and I
was coward enough to accept her offer. In viewing my own conduct
in this matter I am not troubled with any obliquity of vision ; it
shows quite as black in my eyes as it can possibly do in yours, or in
those of any other person. Neither could your reproaches — if to
reproach were your province — add aught of bitterness to those waters
of Marah of which my soul has drunk of late till it is nigh sick unto
death.

" When Esther Sarel came out of prison, I had a situation ready
for her in a town a hundred miles from Helsingham, and there she
has remained since that time. I had determined in my own mind
that my secret should remain a secret for ever, that not even my
husband should become aware of the crime of which his wife had
been guilty. It is not necessary to recapitulate here the circumstances
that have induced me to alter that decision. That I kave decided to
alter it, my present communication to you is sufficient proof. To
you, as the magistrate by whom Esther Sarel was committed, I send
this simple statement of facts, leaving you to deal with it in whatever
way you may deem most advisable. My wish is that Esther Sarel
should be exculpated in the eyes of all who knew her from any
participation in a crime for which she has been unjustly punished.

" I shall send a copy of this statement to my husband, who is at
present from home. I dread the shock to him ten thousand times
more than I fear anything that can happen to myself.

" Margaret Bruhn."

Without pausing to think, or to read over what she had written, when
Margaret had completed her letter to Sir Richard Ashburnham, she
at once penned the following note to her husband : —

"My dearest Robert, — Accompanying these lines you will receive a
copy of a statement, the original of which I shall send by the next
post to Sir Richard Ashburnham. That its contents will prove a
terrible shock to you, I cannot doubt. The nature of the imme-
diate circumstances which induces me to keep no longer as a secret

A Guilty Silence. 455

that which I have carefully hidden for so long a time, I will reveal to
you when I see you next. I cannot write respecting them. That
you will ever again look upon me as your wife, after you shall have
read my confession, is more than I dare hope for. I do not even ask
you to forgive me — at least, not now. There are some wrongs too
monstrous for immediate forgiveness, and the wrong I have done you
is one of them. Darling ! I have loved you very, very dearly ; and
the very depth of that love increases my humiliation ten thousand
fold. Do with me as you will. Imprison me ; cast me out of house
and home ; refuse to look on me ever again ; and I will not murmur.
My greatest punishment will lie in the thought that I have deceived
you, who loved me and trusted me so implicitly — in the recollection
that I willingly allowed you to wed a thief.

" Give me credit, however, for this much : that had there seemed
to me at the time I married you the remotest probability of this thing
ever rising up in judgment against me, I would rather have been
struck dead at your feet than have become your wife. I had good
reason for believing that it was buried out of sight for ever, and that
my secret would die with me, unsuspected by every one. What my
motives were for taking the letter, and how the act has at length been
brought home to me, are points on which I cannot enter now. If
you do not choose to hear them from my lips, I will put them down
in writing for you whenever you may wish me to do so. You will no
doubt be able to judge better than I as to what the action of Sir
Richard Ashburnham will probably be on receipt of my communi-
cation. Inspired by that fortitude which despair alone can lend the
soul, I await here whatever may happen next. Come what may, I
shall never, never cease to love you. Dearest ! is it not written that in
expiation there lies a virtue sufficient to wash away the stains of even
greater crimes than mine ? If this be so, should we meet no more on
earth, it may, perhaps, be granted to me to meet you again in that
Hereafter to which the happy and the unhappy are alike hastening.
That hope is all that is now left to console

" Your wretched

" Margaret."

With this letter to her husband Mrs. Bruhn inclosed a copy of the
one intended for Sir Richard Ashburnham. When both were ready,
she put on a bonnet and shawl, and slipped out of the quiet house, in
which no one was up but herself, and hurried through the deserted
streets, stopping for a moment now and then to gather breath, till she
reached the post-office. She dropped her letters into the box with
a sort of slow reluctance ; but when they were in and past her
recovery, she seemed to breathe more freely, as a wretch on whom
sentence has been delayed might do when he hears his doom and
there is no longer room for suspense.

A light shone through the blinds of the familiar post-office window.

456 A Guilty Silence.

The sight of it brought vividly back to Margaret's mind every minute
event of that fatal evening, and as she went back homeward she
re-enacted the whole hateful drama in her own mind, with all its
phases of shame and misery, as though she were rehearsing some
half-forgotten part, which she might be called upon to go through
again at a moment's notice.

She felt fevered and ill when she got home, and unutterably weary.
Instead of going to bed, she lay down on the sofa in her dressing-
room, and there passed the remainder of the night. In the morning
she was worse, and her illness grew upon her as the day advanced.
" Perhaps I shall die," she said to herself more than once. " It will
be better for Robert — better for every one that I should die. We
always think tenderly of our dead, and they would think tenderly of
me when I should be no more."

Margaret's letter reached her husband in Paris. She had only
written the truth when she stated that its contents would prove a
great shock to him. He hurried home with the least possible delay,
but Mrs. Bruhn was past recognizing him by the time he reached
Brook Lodge. She had been struck down by the same fever that
had claimed Silas as a victim. She had brought the contagion from
his death-bed.

Mr. Bruhn found a message awaiting him from Sir Richard
Ashburnham, who had been one of his most intimate friends for many
years, and as soon as he had seen everything done for his wife that
could be done, he drove over to see him. Mrs. Bruhn's strange
communication was fully discussed between them, the decision at
which they arrived being, that so long as Mrs. Bruhn should remain
in the condition in which she then was, her confession should be
kept strictly private, and no proceedings of any kind be taken in the
matter.

Mr. Bruhn sent for Esther Sarel immediately after his return from
Sir Richard's. Esther was in Helsingham, having gone thither in
compliance with the telegram sent her by Mrs. Bruhn on the night of
Silas's death. She had stayed to see her lover buried, and was just
on the point of going back to her situation when Mr. Bruhn's
summons reached her. She had wondered that no message from
Margaret had been received by her during the four or five days of
her stay in Helsingham, especially after she had learned from Mrs.
Dearlove that Mrs. Bruhn had been with Silas at the moment of his
death ; but having come to the conclusion that Margaret must have
some secret reasons for not communicating with her, she was about
to take her leave of the little town without venturing near Brook
Ivodge, when she received the message desiring her to go up there at
once.

Her interview with Mr. Bruhn was a painful one for both of
them. Esther was not slow to understand the kind of person with
whom she had to deal, and quickly saw that any reservations or

A Guilty Silence. 457

concealments which she might feel inclined to make as in the interest
of Margaret would be worse than useless. Consequently, she made a
full and frank statement of all the circumstances so far as they were
known to her.

Her distress was extreme when told by Mr. Bruhn of the confession
which his wife had made a few days previously. She cried bitterly
for a long time, and implored Mr. Bruhn to keep the confession as a
secret confided to him alone, and that even at the eleventh hour all
might yet be well. Mr. Bruhn could promise nothing. He could
only await the recovery of his wife with what patience was possible
to him, till which time no further step of any kind could be taken
in the matter. He was appalled at the abyss that had opened so
suddenly at his feet, and stood as one amazed, not knowing which
way to turn.

The crisis of Margaret's illness came and went, and the doctors
decided that she would recover. And recover she did, in body but
not in mind. Her wits were gone : she was melancholy mad. She
knew neither husband, nor sister, nor father. Esther alone she
recognized ; and as Esther's presence seemed to soothe the darker fits
of her malady and to act more beneficially upon her than that of any
stranger could have done, Esther prayed to be allowed to accompany
her when it was found necessary to remove her to a private asylum ;
and so went with her, and waited upon her with a loving patience
that seemed never to grow weary.

One peculiarity of Mrs. Bruhn's malady was that she was con-
tinually striving to hide away a letter that she fancied she had stolen.
In order to humour her she was supplied with a fictitious letter,
which, with a great show of mystery, she hid every morning in a
fresh place, her only anxiety, so far as those about her could judge,
being lest any one, by design or accident, should discover the spot
where she had so carefully put it away. She had other strange
fancies. " I know quite well what place this is," she would often say
to Esther. "It is a private madhouse, and I am shut up here in
order that my vast property may be enjoyed by some one else. They
will never let me out alive, I am quite aware of that. But the world
shall learn my sad history from my memoirs. They will form a most
remarkable book. I shall begin them next week without fail, and
don't forget, Esther, to have a fine quill ready for me on Monday
morning. One's memoirs ought always to be written with a quill."

Despite this sad aberration of mind, the physician under whose
care Mrs. Bruhn was placed did not fail to cheer her husband with
hopes of her ultimate recovery.

These hopes were happily verified. By degrees her reason came
back to her, and at the end of two years she quitted the asylum
thoroughly and permanently cured.

Her return to sanity was a process full of anguish and humiliation
of soul. When she called to mind, one by one, the events that had

VOL. LIV. 2 E

458 A Guilty Silence.

happened to her up to the time that she was taken ill ; when she
knelt again in memory by the death-bed of Silas Ringe, and penned
once more in thought her letter to Sir Richard Ashburnham, and that
other letter to her husband, she was almost ready to wish that in this
world her senses had never been restored to her.

What had been the effect of her confession upon her husband ?
That at once became the great question with her as soon as she fully
understood where she was and the chain of events that had conducted
her thither. Did he still look upon her as his wife ? Had he ever
been to see her during her long confinement ? Or had he cast her
off from the first, utterly and for ever ?

These were but a few of the self-torturing questions put by her to
Esther Sarel.

Esther's assurances that Mr. Bruhn still regarded her as his wife,
that he was in no way changed, unless it were by his deep anxiety
for her recovery, fell like sweetest balm over Margaret's troubled
spirit, soothing her reason, which seemed still to flutter and tremble
in the balance, with hopes of a happiness that seemed to her far
greater than her deserts. Still, it was not without much inward fear
and trembling that she awaited her first interview with her husband
after the power of recognition had been given back to her.

But when they did meet, she was not left long in doubt. ]\Ir.
Bruhn's joy at finding that his wife was really about to be restored
to him was too genuine to admit of the slightest question on her
part.

" And can you really and truly forgive me, and look upon me with
the same loving eyes as of old ? " asked Margaret w^hen she had
recounted to her husband the whole story of her one crime, and how
she had promised Silas Ringe on his deathbed that it should remain
a secret no longer.

" ' Let him that is without sin cast the first stone,' " answered
Mr. Bruhn. "Yes, Margaret, as I stand in need of forgiveness
myself, so can I freely and fully forgive you. You erred, and bitterly
have you paid for your error. With Esther Sarel, to whom we both
owe so much, it now rests to decide in what form and to what extent
her dying lover's wish that her innocence should be declared before
the world shall be carried out. If Esther says that it must be
carried out to the extreme letter, we can only bow our heads and
accept the consequences."

" That was certainly the spirit in which Silas Ringe intended that
his wishes should be carried out."

" Probably so," answered Mr. Bruhn. " But, for all that, the
question must now be decided by Esther. Her noble heart will
teach her to decide upon that which is best for all of us to do — even
that which Silas himself would most approve, now that his soul is
purged from earthly passions, could his voice but reach us from the
other side of the grave."

A Guilty Silence. 459

Esther was summoned, and now first learnt what had passed
between Mrs. Bruhn and Silas on the night of the latter's death.

What she was told distressed her greatly. But when Mr. Bruhn
informed her that his wife, in her determination to carry out the
promise she had made the dying man, had sent, not merely to her
husband, but also to Sir Richard Ashburnham, a confession that it
was she alone who stole the letter, and that it now rested with her,
Esther, as the one who had suffered most for that other person's
fault, to decide in what form and within what limits the said con-
fession of guilt should be made public — Esther at once vehemently
protested against any further steps being taken in the matter. She
maintained that in what Mrs. Bruhn had already done she had carried
out the wish of Silas as far as there was the slightest necessity for her
to do so. The secret was a secret no longer, and therein the behests
of Silas had been obeyed; further than that it would be madness
to go. The crime had already been expiated in full. Let that
expiation suffice, and seek not to reopen an old wound on which
Time's healing touch was already laid. Esther finished by saying
that if Mrs. Bruhn should still persist in declaring her guilt to the
world, she, Esther, would combat the assertion as the hallucination
of a mad woman.

Mr. Bruhn was unutterably relieved to find that Esther's decision
coincided so closely with his own secret hopes ; but Margaret's
conscience was only half satisfied : between what she had done and
what she had promised Silas that she would do, the gap was so wide !
After several conversations with her husband and Esther, at intervals
and when her mind was clear enough to grasp the whole question,
the decision ultimately arrived at was this : — that Mrs. Bruhn should
reveal the real facts of the case to Dr. Randolph and his wife, to her
father, to Mrs. Sutton, to Miss Easterbrook, and to Miss Ivimpey, as
people to all of whom Esther was well known, and whose good opinion
must be precious to her ; but that beyond this limited circle not even
a whisper of suspicion should be breathed against Mrs. Bruhn. It
was not without great difficulty that Esther was induced to agree to
even this concession, but Margaret was so firm in the matter that she
was at length compelled to give way.

This confession was not made till some weeks subsequent to
Margaret's first interview with her husband after her reason had come
back to her, for it was not till nearly two months later that her
physician pronounced her thoroughly cured, and sanctioned her
return home. It is hardly needful to say that Esther Sarel accom-
panied her. Next day she summoned all those whose names are
given above, and then and there she told her story.

No persuasion would have been sufficient to induce Esther to stay
at Brook Lodge that afternoon. She crept away to Mrs. Dearlove's,
and there she remained till a late hour listening to all that the
garrulous old woman had to tell her respecting poor, dead Silas. She

2 E 2

460 A Guilty Silence.

]iad heard it more than once before ; but each time the story of his
illness and death was told her, it struck her with a sort of sad fresh-
ness, and seemed to lose none of its interest by repetition. A neat
monument, at Mr. Bruhn's expense, had been erected over the grave
of Silas, and Mrs. Bruhn's first visit after her return home was — in
the company of Esther — to the cemetery in which the young carpenter
slept his last sleep.

It may be added here that the sideboard carved by Silas Ringe was
duly exhibited in London, where it did not fail to attract considerable
attention. When the Exhibition was over, it was fixed in its position
in the dining-room at White Towers, where it may still be seen
together with many other curiosities, ancient and modern. The
price, as agreed upon with Lord Borrowash, was paid over after the
death of Silas to the young carpenter's next of kin.

Of late, the routine of business had grown irksome to Mr. Bruhn,
and he was glad, for the satisfaction of his own conscience, to seize
on so sufficient an excuse as the state of his wife's health to break
through the trammels that had held him for so many years, and which
but a little while ago he would not have believed it possible that he
could ever wish to escape from. At the end of three months from the
date of Mrs. Bruhn's return home, he had completed the requisite
arrangements for the transfer of his business ; and leaving the final
settlements in the care of his solicitors, he bid farewell to the little
town, and, accompanied by his wife and Esther Sarel, he set out for a
lengthened tour abroad.

The last news received at Helsingham states that Mr. and Mrs.
Bruhn were on their way back from Jerusalem. They will probably
return to England after a time, in which case it is not unlikely that
Mr. Bruhn will enter the exciting arena of political life, and Margaret's
long-standing ambition to see her husband in Parliament may,
perhaps, be gratified.

Esther Sarel is still with them, and will stay with them through life.
She is not looked upon in any way as a dependant. Neither Mr. nor
Mrs. Bruhn would for one moment agree to regard her in that light.
She is their very devoted, humble friend. She is regarded everywhere
as one of the family, and she has risen with the occasion. Her powers
of adaptability are considerable, and as she reads a great deal, and is
constantly mixing with educated people, she has come at length to
look like " one to the manner born ; " and in that pale, quiet woman
— quiet in manner and quiet in dress, — the chief characteristic of
whose face is its goodness ; who does not talk much, but whose
opinions, when asked for, are all instinct with plain, good sense, — few
would suspect that they were looking on one who but a few short
years ago was nothing more than a waiting-maid in a ladies' school.
Esther will never marry. Her love for Silas Ringe was the one
passion of her life. She is one of those rare women who love solitude
for its own sake, and seek it out ; and as Esther has that fine tact

A Guilty Silence. 461

which comes to some people as a gift of nature, she never seems de
trop, and is especially careful that neither Mr. Bruhn nor Margaret
shall have occasion to think her company a bore.

Of Margaret herself what shall be said in conclusion ? Merely
this : — that she is brighter and happier, healthier in mind and body,
than she has been for many years. It is the quiet, toned-down
happiness of an autumnal day. The garishness of summer has fled
like a dream ; in the atmosphere there is a faint, impalpable melan-
choly, a subtle odour of sadness, that pervades the whole landscape,
and is yet almost as delicious as the first fresh breath of spring, while
about it there is a mellow sweetness such as never fans the hoyden
cheek of May.

Mrs. Cardale is still as much an invalid as when introduced to the
reader's notice. She and Margaret are great friends, and pass much
of their time in each other's society. She can never be sufficiently
grateful to Margaret for having weaned her brother from " that detest-
able mill," although Margaret, in reality, had nothing whatever to do
in the matter.

Our darling Trix has a little family growing up around her, and is
as happy a young matron as you would fmd in a day's search. Mrs.
Chillinghurst, of Pingley Dene, did not forget the request of her par-
ticular friend, Mrs. Cardale. She took Trix by the hand, and intro-
duced her to some of the best families in the county, and included
her frequently in invitations to the Dene parties. On several
occasions when she drove into Helsingham she stopped to take
luncheon with the doctor's pretty wife. These were certain proofs that
the great county lady was thoroughly satisfied with her protegee, and the
best circles of Helsingham were not slow to follow the lead thus given
them. Trix is fond of society, and she went out a great deal during
the first three years of her married life. Of late, however, maternal
duties have claimed more of her time and thoughts, but there is no
reason to suppose that life is less pleasant to her on that account.
She never looks happier that when romping with her youngsters in the
nursery, in which noisy apartment Mrs. Sutton spends more hours
than it would be convenient to count. The old lady is still as dictato-
rial and self-opinionated as ever ; but she seems to be universally be-
loved by the little people, whom she alternately scolds and coddles after
a fashion that Dr. Hugh would not allow from any other than herself.

But the Doctor's practice has extended so much of late that he has
scant time for thoughts unconnected with his profession. He is
probably the hardest-worked man in Helsingham ; and although he
sometimes grumbles that his patients are slowly killing him instead of
the reverse, his measure of content would be less deep were his days
less busily occupied. People say that he must be making his fortune,
but that is as it may be. It may interest some fair reader to know
that his wife has, for her own particular use, as neat a little brougham
as even the Ladies' Mile could show.

462 A Guilty Silence.

Mr. Davenant has resided with Dr. Hugh since the breaking-up of
the estabhshment at Brook Lodge. Increasing age has not failed to
bring with it some touch of infirmity ; but if sUghtly more shaky on
his legs' than he used to be, he is still as carefully got up as ever, and
by gaslight looks at least fifteen years younger than he really is.

Between Miss Easterbrook and Mr. Davenant there is a mild
flirtation of long standing ; but that it will ever end in matrimony,
neither of the parties chiefly concerned, nor any one who is aware of
its existence, ever believes for a moment. Still, the flirtation — a tea-
and-toast one from tiie first — goes on, and will probably last as long
as the ancient Adonis himself. Mr. Davenant is just the kind of
man who, if he were on his deathbed, and a lady called to see him,
would think more of paying her a compliment than of the serious
subjects that ought to engage his thoughts at such a time.

The prestige of the w^orthy mistress of Irongate House has in no
wise decreased. Her establishment is always full, and, really, Miss
Easterbrook must have a very nice little balance at her banker's.
Every spring she makes a point of telling her friends that she intends
to retire into private life before the close of the year. But one year
comes to an end after another, and still finds her nestled among her
fledgelings, under the old roof of Irongate House, and there, without
doubt, she will remain while she lives.

In a retired corner of the country churchyard where lie the remains
of her father and mother, Charlotte Heme sleeps her last sleep.
The unquiet heart is at rest now. The fluttering prisoner that beat
its wings so vainly against the cage in which cruel circumstance had
confined it, pants for liberty no longer ; through that golden portal
which we call death, liberty has come to her as it must come to
each of us in turn. Whatever her errors may have been, we would
fain hope that with that liberty poor Charlotte has also found pardon
and peace — " the peace that passeth all understanding."

And so, dear reader — Farewell.

THE END.

4^3

THE DALESMEN OF EYAM.

By Christian Burke.

TT was the fatal summer of 1666, and far away among the Derby-
■^ shire hills, the picturesque little village of Eyam, where now the
modern tourist takes his peaceful holiday, was sore besieged. There
was no sound of cannon or musketry, no flashing of swords or
trampling of horses, no ringing tread of an armed host through the
long quaint village street. Noiselessly yet resistlessly came the foe,
and underneath the sultry summer sky was fought out day by day for
four long weary months a strange and ghastly battle almost without
its parallel in the pages of history.

Eyam, or the "Village of Waters " as it is sometimes called, is
situated near the Derbyshire Peak. Sheltered from the winds by a
thickly-wooded mountain range, it nestles at the foot of the hills in
the very heart of the most beautiful and varied scenery, and luxuriant
and fertile vegetation.

Sheltered in their own peaceful little valley, sowing and reaping
their fruitful fields, plying their simple trades, it is probable that the
villagers of Eyam knew and cared but little for the terrible pestilence
that was raging in the great Metropolis and its vicinity, and was now
approaching this quiet world-forgotten little hamlet to reap a yet more
terrible harvest.

It was in the September of 1665 that the passing bell of Eyam
tolled out for the soul of one George Vicars, a tailor, living in a little
cottage not far from the churchyard. And then the rumour first spread
from house to house as to the awful nature of the disease that had so
suddenly swept off one who a few days before was hale and strong.

" They say it is the plague ! " spoke the good-wife to her husband,
dropping her voice as she uttered the dreaded word ; and neighbour
looked at neighbour with whitening lips and startled eyes ; even the
children stopped at their play and shivered as they heard of the fatal
box of clothing which had been sent to the tailor by a relative in
London, and which brought with it the seeds of death.

" God's mercy ! who may be the next ? " said the gossips as they
spun their wheels before the door ; and the lads and lassies gathered
in the sunset light beside the stream hushed their laughter, and filled
their pitchers in silence-as the news of that death broke in with
solemn menace on their young and happy lives.

Thus it was that the pestilence first reached Eyam, and so virulent
w^as it in form that all through the w^inter, in spite of the cold which
usually held it in check, it claimed its victims by ones and twos, until

464 The Dalesmen of Eyam.

by the beginning of June 1666 some seventy-seven persons out of the
small population had sickened and died.

During these months, to every house on which the ominous red
cross was drawn came the good Rector William Mompesson in the
exercise of his sacred calling, tending the sick, ministering the last
rites to the dying, comforting the terrified and heart-broken mourners ;
at once both priest, physician and friend, to his stricken flock.

The character of William Mompesson shines out amid these scenes
of darkness and death as at once a leader of men, and a type of that
self-devoted priesthood that in every age and every clime has been
and is the glory of the Church of Christ.

But little is known of his early history. He came to Eyam in
1664, having previously married a young and beautiful girl named
Catherine, the daughter of Ralph Carr of Cocken, in the county of
Durham, and they had at the time of the outbreak two little children
— George and Elizabeth, one of whom at least must have been
scarcely out of babyhood.

That Mompesson was in the first instance somewhat disappointed
at his preferment, probably desiring some more important and active
field of labour, we gather from his own sad and self-reproachful letters
written in the November of 1666 when the disease had done its
worst, in which he laments his own ingratitude and want of appre-
ciation of the blessings of his lot. Be that as it may, from the
moment of the death of Vicars on to the bitter end of the following
year he never faltered in his duties, never relaxed his efforts, never
even in the agonising calamity that desolated his own home, shrank
from his burden. But literally laid down his life, and that which was
far more precious than life itself, in the service of his people, caring
for nothing save that his Master's work might be done.

In the early part of June 1666, the pestilence broke out with
redoubled fury, and the panic-stricken people were nearly beside
themselves with fear. Catherine Mompesson, in an agony of grief,
flung herself at her husband's feet, and besought him to fly from the
doomed village with herself and their little children beyond the reach
of the fell destroyer.

" The hireling fleeth because he is an hireling .... the good
shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." Nay ! he asked her — would
she have him faithless to his God and to his orders ? Should the
sick be untended, the dying unabsolved, the Holy Sacrifice uncele-
brated, and the desolate unconsoled, that he might haply preserve in
despicable security for a few days or months or years that life that
was long ago given over to the service of the world's Redeemer ?
There was a time of reckoning for all things ; should he one day have
to stand before his Maker, and, overwhelmed with grief and shame,
be able to make no answer when the solemn cry went forth, " Where
is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock ? "

Then he in his turn sought to persuade her to leave him, and to

The Dalesmen of Eyam. 465

take the little ones who needed her so sorely, and go with them to
their relatives in Derby. But Catherine had no fears for or thought
of her own safety ; and his entreaties only determined her to send
away the children, though it almost broke her heart to separate from
them ; as for herself, her place was at her husband's side, and from
this resolution nothing could move her.

There was no time for delay, and that same summer evening the
two young parents kissed the smiling baby-faces, and, commending
them to God, sent their dear ones away in the care of a trusted
servant out of the baleful atmosphere that surrounded their once
happy home. We can imagine how the mother wept and hung
above her darlings, how she lingered wistfully at the door watching,
long after the shadowy outline of their little forms and the waving of
their tiny hands had become lost in the gathering darkness, and then
turned wearily back into the house with a sad foreboding at her
heart which told her that she should never look upon their faces any
more.

It was at this juncture that Mompesson discovered that prepara-
tions were being rapidly made for a general flight. A few of the
wealthier inhabitants had already indeed left, and the remainder,
unable to bear their misery any longer, determined to quit the village
in a body, heedless or ignorant that they would carry with them
wherever they went the fatal pestilence, and sow it throughout the
length and breadth of their own and the adjoining counties.

There is but little doubt that had this course been adopted the
mournful history of Eyam would have been repeated in every village
in Derbyshire, and instead of one little hamlet the entire surrounding
country side would have been devastated. At this supreme moment
Mompesson faced the difficulties of his position with a courage and a
wisdom that under God saved the lives of many thousands of people.
Calling his terror-stricken flock together he made a passionate appeal
to them, entreating them to reconsider their decision. He pointed
out that there was not the slightest security that such a measure
would save their own lives, steeped as they were in infection ; and
that there was an absolute certainty that wherever they went they
would carry with them a baleful death, bringing sorrow and deso-
lation into countless happy and unsuspecting homes. He put
before them an heroic alternative — that they should isolate themselves
within the narrow confines of their little village, letting the plague work
its will upon them, for whom, as he frankly told them, there was but
little chance of escape ; and thus by this means save their brethren.

When one considers how strong in human nature is the hope and
love of life, how almost uncontrollable the unreasoning fear, the
impulse towards flight from an imiminent and unknown danger on the
part of a number of persons animated both by the same dread and
desire, one would not have been surprised had Mompesson's words
fallen on deaf ears, and hearts deadened to all thought or care for any

4.66 The Dalesmen of Eyam.

save themselves. But to the lasting honour and glory of Eyam, the
appeal was not made in vain.

Mompesson, looking into the troubled faces round him, told them
that if they would but promise solemnly before God to abide by his
conditions, no want or needless suffering should fall upon them. He
would at once write to the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood,
and arrange for all supplies and necessities to be brought from with-
out, to given places on the outskirts of the village, while a boundary
should be set beyond which none should pass either from without or
from within.

Thus, he said, shutting in among themselves their fell enemy, they
would cripple its power, burying it if need be in their own graves, until
in His own good time God should see fit to lay to His hand and
deliver them therefrom. Until that day let them be patient and brave,
resting in the sure and certain hope that even the sufferings of this
present time were as nothing to the glory that was to come ; while
death itself, however terrible, was but after all a gateway opening into
everlasting life.

Something of the speaker's enthusiasm must have flashed back
from the worn and haggard faces of his listeners — something of that
greater love, that spirit of self-abnegation that attained its Divine
culmination on the Cross of Him who died for the whole world, must
have found an echo in the hearts of those simple, unlettered folk, for
no dissentient voice was raised — with one accord they accepted
Mompesson's conditions, and the promise made was kept unbroken to
the last.

From that time forward there was neither going in nor coming out
of Eyam — without, the plague, like an invisible wall, surrounded the
devoted little village ; while from within, a still more impassable
barrier that their own hearts and consciences had raised, barred all
communication with the outer world.*

In response to Mompesson's letters, the gentry of the neighbourhood,
and more especially the Earl of Devonshire, undertook to supply the
village with all necessaries and provisions. " A kind of circle," says
the chief authority on matters connected with Eyam, " was drawn
round the village, marked by particular and well-known stones and
hills, beyond which it was solemnly agreed no one of the villagers
should pass, whether infected or no. This circle extended about half
a mile round the village, and to two or three places or points in this
boundary provisions were brought. A well or rivulet northward of
Eyam, called to this day Mompesson's Well or Brook, was one of the
places where articles were deposited. These articles were brought very

* The only exceptions appear to have been that one wet day a carter of
Bubnell chose to drive through Eyam, and on another occasion a poor
woman, under some pressing necessity, attempted to reach the market at
Tideswell. Both met with rude treatment from the terrified people, when
it became known from whence they had come.

The Dalesmen of Eyani. /\6'j

early in the morning by persons from adjacent villages, who when
they had delivered them beside the well, fled with the precipitation of
panic. Individuals appointed by Mompesson and Stanley fetched
the articles left, and when they took money it was placed in the well
or certain stone troughs to be purified ; thus preventing contagion by
passing from hand to hand. . . . When money was sent, it was only
for some extra or particular articles, the provisions and many other
necessaries were supplied, it is supposed, by the Earl of Devonshire."
. . . . " The wisdom of Mompesson," continues this writer, " can only
be surpassed by the courage of the inhabitants in not trespassing
beyond the bounds marked out." *

For the magnificence of their sacrifice to stand out in its true pro-
portions, it must also be borne in mind that these were but a handful
of simple country folk, many of them ignorant and uncultured, with
all the prejudices and superstitions of their class. They had been
ready to put faith in every infallible remedy, and in everything that
promised the slightest hope of escape ; to them it would have
probably seemed that in flight lay their one chance of personal
immunity, and the surrender of this hope must have been a sore
effort. A surrender which, together with their patient endurance, their
loyal obedience to the one man who had the wisdom to conceive and
the nerve and devotion to carry out this difficult enterprise, had its
source alike in that Faith which knows nothing of self-interest or self-
preservation, but only of self-renunciation.

All through the months of June, July, and August, the plague
continued to rage with unabated fury. The sunny village street was
deserted ; the roses bloomed and faded all ungathered ; the cattle
lowed untended in the meadows ; the fruit hung in blighted clusters
in the orchards ; and the waving corn ripened in the fields, but none
had heart !or strength to reap the harvest. The weather was hot and
sultry ; the atmosphere loaded and oppressive, and the sunshine fell
with sickly glare into the chambers where, one after another, men,
women, and little children laid them down to die.

The dust gathered on the spinning-wheel, for the good wives
talked no more before their doors ; neighbour shrank from neighbour,
fearing the slightest contact, and the few old gossips who lingered
now and then in the grass-grown streets, where the rabbits and
hares sported undismayed in the broad daylight, no longer exchanged
their wonted cheerful, idle chat, but had only to tell in mournful
whispers how the strange " white cricket " had been seen on such
and such a one's now deserted hearth, and how the mournful baying
of " Gabriel's hounds " had been heard at night beneath the windows
of the latest victim of the disease.

The annual festival of rejoicing for the harvest, always held on
St. Helen's Day, was this year quite forgotten. The church was
closed, for it was deemed dangerous to crowd the people together

* " History of Eyam."

4^8 The Dalesmen of Eyam.

within its walls. No bells rang from the belfry ; the very gates of
the churchyard were closed, and the dead were buried in any open
space of ground near their homes.

House after house was visited by the destroying angel ; husband
and wife, mother and child, young and old, were smitten down before
him. Some sinking away in a deadly stupor, others racked with pain
and tormented almost to the verge of madness by a raging fever.
Relatives buried their own dead in the nearest field, until the last mem-
ber of a family died, and then some friend or neighbour, or hired hand,
hastily dug their narrow grave. From the 5 th to the 30th of July
perished the entire family of the fated Talbots of Riley, numbering
seven persons. And early in August Elizabeth Hancock buried with
her own hands her husband, three stalwart sons, and three blooming
daughters. Strangely enough, though weakened by her awful watch-
ing, and prostrate with grief, she herself escaped the disease, passing
the remainder of her days peacefully with her only surviving child, a
son, who was at the time fortunately apprenticed in Sheffield.

Amid this scene of gloom and misery the only bright spot in the
picture is in the figures of William and Catherine Mompesson going
to and fro on tireless errands of mercy. All that skill or tenderness
could do for their suffering people was done by that devoted couple,
who went fearlessly in and out of the infected dwellings. Mom-
pesson's own description, written shortly after the visitation was over,
is so graphic that it cannot be omitted :

" The condition of this! place was so sad that I persuade myself
it did exceed a// history and example. Our town hath become a
Golgotha, the place of a skull ; and had there not been a small
remnant left we had been as Sodom and Gomorrah. My ears never
heard such doleful lamentations. My nose never smelled such horrid
smells, and my eyes never beheld such ghastly spectacles. There
have been seventy-six families visited within my parish, out of which
259 persons died."

Fearing any longer to hold service in the church, twice in the
week, and every Sunday, Mompesson gathered together his fast-
dwindling flock in the Delf, a picturesque and secluded little dell,
where from an ivy-covered rock, which served as a rude pulpit, he
spoke to them words of hope and cheer, and where, like Phineas
of old, he stood up and poured forth his passionate prayer to God
that the plague might be stayed.

The people sat below him on the grassy slope, each one a little
removed from the other. The instinct of common sorrow which
draws men together, the kind and sympathising voice of their one
earthly friend, and their simple unwavering faith in their Heavenly
Father, in whom, although He slew them, yet would they trust —
brought them at each summons to their accustomed place. But
their eyes were heavy with weakness, and dulled with unshed tears,
their brains reeling at the greatness of the calamity that had befallen

The Dalesmen of Eyaui. 469

them, and they had no strength left save to join, with faltering lips
in their pastor's solemn and ceaseless supplication.

"/;z a// time of our tribulation . . . in the hour of death and in the
day of Judgment : Good Lo?'d, deliver us ! "

Mompesson kept in his usual health ; although always " an ailing
man," he yet seemed to bear a charmed life in the midst of the
disease which overpowered strong and weak alike. But the sword of
the Angel of Death was already stretched out over the peaceful Rectory.
It was on the 22nd of August that Mompesson was walking, with his
young wife on his arm — she was only twenty-six years of age — about
the fields adjoining their home. They were talking the one to the
other — possibly about their absent little ones — when she suddenly
exclaimed, " Oh ! the air — how sweet it smells ! " At her words her
husband's heart failed him, for already within his knowledge the same
sensation and the same words had been a forerunner of the dread
disease.

A few short hours proved all too soon the fatal truth. Vainly
Mompesson sought every remedy, and nursed his darling with cease-
less and unremitting zeal. Love for her husband and her helpless
children enabled her for a time to strive against her sickness, but her
sorely-tried strength failed rapidly, and she died peacefully in her hus-
band's arms. What an agony of grief rings out from the cry with
which the sorrow-stricken man yielded up his treasure to his God —
" Farewell — farewell all happy days ! "

Catherine Mompesson's death stirred the whole remnant of the
village from their dull apathy to quick and living sorrow. From every
quarter they came, weeping for her who had so often wept for them,
and forgetting their own deep griefs in the bitter calamity that had
overtaken their Rector.

He buried his wife in Eyam churchyard, close to the east end of
the chancel, and on her grave where the morning sunlight shines is
still to be read the half-obliterated, significant inscription —

" Mors mihi Lucrum."

After she was laid to rest, Mompesson roused himself from his
mourning to resume his labours among his people. In a letter to his
children, dated Aug. 31, 1666, he pours out something of the trouble
that was oppressing his soul :

" Dear Hearts," he writes, " this brings you the doleful news of
your dear mother's death — the greatest loss that ever befell you. I
am not only deprived of a kind and loving comfort, but you are also
bereaved of the most indulgent mother that ever dear children had
.... But we must comfort ourselves in God .... that the loss is
only ours, and that what is our sorrow is her gain. The consideration
of her joys, which I do assure myself are unutterable, should refresh
our drooping spirits. My dear hearts, your blessed mother lived a

470 The Dalesmen of Eyam.

most holy life and made a most comfortable and happy end, and is
now invested with a crown of righteousness."

Then he goes on to dwell with pathetic insistance on the virtues
of that mother whose memory he would fain have live in her children's
hearts — her piety and devotion, " which were according to the exact
principles of the Church of England" — her modesty and humility,
her charity and frugality, her housewifely zeal. " Her discourse ever
grave and meek, yet pleasant withal."

Writing to his friend and patron. Sir George Saville, on Sept. i,
IMompesson says :

' " Dear and honoured Sir, — This is the saddest news that ever my
pen could write. The destroying Angel having taken up his quarters
within my habitation, my dearest wife is gone to her eternal rest, and
is invested with a crown of righteousness, having made a happy end.
Indeed, had she loved herself as well as me, she had fled from this
pit of destruction with the sweet babes, and might have prolonged her
days ; but she was resolved to die a martyr to my interests."

That he considered his own end must be rapidly approaching is
evident from the terms in which he commends his children to his
patron's care, and takes farewell of him and all his house ; his letter
closes with the following words :

" Dear Sir, I beg the prayers of all about you that I may not be
daunted at the powers of hell, and that I may have dying graces ;
with tears I beg that when you are praying for fatherless orphans you
will remember my two pretty babes."

But it was not to be. The death of Catherine Mompesson may
be considered as the closing act of the terrible drama. In September
the weather became slightly cooler, and the number of deaths only
amounted to twenty-four as against the seventy-three that had perished
in August alone. On the nth of October the wind shifted to the
east, and the plague suddenly and entirely ceased. From that day
there were no fresh deaths, and the remnant of the little village began
slowly to take heart again, and to try to restore in some measure
their ruined homes. Out of a population of 350 no less than 267
had died — 259 of plague, according to Mompesson, and the remaining
eight of other diseases ; therefore the entire muster of the once happy
and prosperous hamlet numbered only 83 souls, including the Rector
himself, and such of the children as had escaped the epidemic. The
winter months were spent in destroying, as far as possible, bedding,
clothing, and furniture, and purifying and fumigating all necessary
articles of apparel ; while every means that the sanitary knowledge of
the time, and the forethought of Mompesson could suggest, was
adopted to prevent a recurrence of the disease.

Writing to his uncle on November 20th, he says :

" Now (blessed be God) all our fears are over, for none have died
of plague since the 1 1 th of October, and the pest houses have long
been empty. I intend — God willing — to spend this week in seeing

The Dalesmen of Eyam. 471

all the woollen clothing fumed and purified, as well for the satisfaction
as for the safety of the country. Here have been such burning of
goods that the like I think was never known. For my part, I have
scarcely apparel to shelter my body, having wasted more than I
needed for the sake of example. During this dreadful visitation I
have not had the least symptom of disease, nor had I ever better
health."

A village ravaged by soldiery or destroyed by fire could hardly
have presented a more piteous and desolate aspect than that of Eyam
at this period. The people, shattered in health and oppressed with
sadness, crept languidly about the streets, and began slowly and
fitfully to resume their ordinary avocations. In almost every home-
stead there must have been some missing face, " some vacant chair,"
and many of the houses were utterly closed and falling into ruins, for
those who had once inhabited them had arisen and gone hence, and
the place thereof would know them no more.

Still, as the days passed on, bringing the assurance that the plague
was at last overcome, the little band would begin to gather hope
again. Dull eyes would brighten, neighbour again seek neighbour,
instead of shrinking from all communication with their kind, and the
happy quick-forgetting laugh of the children would once more be
heard ; while here and there one and another from the surrounding
hamlets would venture to cross that formidable barrier, to see how it
fared with the good people of Eyam, and who was living, and who,
alas ! was dead.

The re-opening of the long-closed church must have been quite an
event, and the sound of the old familiar chimes ringing out on the
still frosty air their solemn message, Jesus bee ovr spede, must have
wakened countless memories — thoughts both of pain and thankfulness
— in the hearts of those who had never hoped to hear them again.

To this period belongs the sad and romantic little story of
" Rowland and his Emmot," still carefully remembered among the
village traditions. A gentle pretty girl, Emmot Sydall of Eyam, was
betrothed to a young farmer living in Middleton Dale. The outburst
of the plague of course separated the lovers, for the young man
apparently had those at home to whom he dared not run the risk of
bringing infection. Rumours of Emmot's death reached him, but he
hardly seemed to have credited them, and as soon as ingress was
permitted he passed the fatal line, and sought the once bright and
cheerful cottage. He crossed the grass-grown threshold — no one
answered his summons, and only his own voice echoed hollowly
through the deserted house. The half-open door swung creaking
back on its rusty hinges. All was still, the chairs and tables stood in
their accustomed places covered with dust, and on the black and
desolate hearth the rank grass was growing and the green damp moss
was creeping silently from brick to brick of the red tiled floor. The
pewter vessels were flecked with rust ; the old Dutch clock was

47 2 T^'hc Dalesmen of Eyam.

pointing with mournful finger to a bygone hour — the Hnnet lay dead
in its cage — only the shadow of death and decay brooded over all
things. For a stronger wooer than Rowland had claimed his Emmot ;
she lay asleep in the grassy dell, and neither his love nor his tears
could bring her back to him.

A few scattered hints remain as to Mompesson's subsequent history,
which after that year of fiery trial seems to have been peaceful and
uneventful. He remained at Eyam until 1669, when he was
presented to the Rectory of Eakring, Notts. He was made Pre-
bendary of York and Southwell, having previously refused, in favour of
a friend, the Deanery of Lincoln. It is somewhat disappointing to
find that he married again, and yet it is pleasant to think of him once
more with a happy home, and little children round him. Of George
and Elizabeth Mompesson but little is known. The former took
Orders, and was Rector of Barnborough ; but whatever their after-
career, the children of such parents could scarcely fail to realise their
father's prayer, uttered for them in the extremity of his sorrow — " I
am not desirous that they should be great, but good." Mompesson
died at Eakring in 1708, in the seventieth year of his age. His body
rests in the chancel of Eakring Church, " in the hope of a blessed
resurrection," and his memory is a deathless heritage to his race.

Such is the story of the Dalesmen of Eyam : a story of patient
endurance, of steadfast and unselfish heroism on the part of an entire
community, which is perhaps almost unique among the records of the
past.

The praise of men, the wondering admiration of the world of later
days, which probably in their own time counted their lives madness
and their deaths without honour, had no part in the thoughts of these
simple dalesmen, as they turned at that solemn appeal and went back
every man to his own house. Of what should be said of them in the
days to come, and of how their memory would shed a lustre round
their tiny unknown village that would never fade away, they knew and
recked but little. They only knew that they heard the voice of their
Lord cutting across their questionings and fears, and caUing to them
to follow Him as He called His disciples of old. And they did
follow Him, nothing wavering, along that bitter way of the Cross which
led them through the grave and gate of death into everlasting life.

" Greater love hath no man than this, that a 7?ian lay down his life
for his friend^

To sit down patiently with empty hands and wait the coming of
death in one of its most terrible and hideous forms, requires a
courage, surely, as deep and strong as to face the torturer's rack, the
scathing fire, and the glittering axe and sword. And among the
glorious martyrs of God not least perhaps in the Kingdom of Heaven
are some of those men and women who sleep for the most part in
nameless graves sown broadcast over the green and fertile fields of
Eyam.

473

THE SENORITA'S GHOST.

'' \/'0U see that quaint little mound," said Dona Pilar ; " that is

-^ the Senorita's grave."

" She never rests there," growled Jose Maria. " She is doing
penance."

" Why ? " asked the young Englishman, Mark Lairt.
She was bad — very bad ! "

" How do you know that, Jose Maria ? " said the old lady sharpl}-,
swinging round on him, and throwing back her head. She was
strangely excited, and clutched her neck convulsively with one black-
gloved hand.

'' I know it because I know it, " answered Jose Maria mumblingly ;
*' and Heaven knows best of all."

*' Who are you, Jose Maria, to prate of what Heaven knows ?
Shut your mouth and learn reverence."

The old man turned aside muttering, but he dared not argue with
the Senora.

Then she swung herself round with the same jerky movem.ent as
before, and spoke to the young Englishman beside her.

" How would you like to be buried here ? "

He looked rather surprised at the question, and the old lady
laughed horribly.

" Here ! " he said, shrugging his shoulders. " I would rather lay
my bones in England."

" Be thankful," retorted she sharply — " be thankful if you get as
good as this. My grandfather was eaten by fierce pigs. They killed
him too ! "

" Good Heavens ! how did that happen ? "

" My grandmother kept fierce pigs and — well, she was jealous.
Now let us go on."

She swung round again, and led the way through a tangle of
garden that by daylight was brilliant with crimson passion-flowers and
hibiscus, and fragrant with tall shrubs of sweet-scented verbena and
rosemary. The nispero trees were bowing down with luscious yellow
fruit, and the cherries blushed amongst their green leaves.

The house stood at one end of the garden, where a fountain
dripped lazily, and frogs were already croaking in the evening light.

" Who was the Senorita?" asked Mark Lairt, with a sudden un-
controllable desire to know.

The old lady swung round angrily.

" It's no matter to you, Mark Lairt ! Ask nothing, and you will
hear no lies."

They passed through a creeper-grown verandah, and entered the

VOL. LIV. 2 F

474 ^^^^ Senorita's Ghost.

house. It was a low, old-fashioned, straggling hacienda house, built
round a patio. The flooring was of red tiles, broken and uneven.
The furniture was scanty, shabby, and quaintly old-fashioned.

Mark looked about him with interest. This, then, was his heri-
tage. Years ago, when he was a mere child, a letter had come from
his uncle Mark, of whom the family had heard nothing for half a
century, saying that he had buried himself in this remote corner of
Chile, and that his property and fortune should eventually belong
to the boy ]\Iark, who, he particularly requested, should be taught
Spanish thoroughly. Then he wrote again, some ten years later,
saying he felt death was near, and bidding Mark wait until he had
attained the age of twenty-five before coming to claim his heritage,
unless he should be summoned before that time, by the death of his
aunt, who was a Chilian, in which case he should be duly informed
of the event.

From that day there came no further communication, beyond the
news of the old man's death ; and Mark, in course of time, being
unable to obtain any answer to his letters, had, when he reached the
age of twenty-five, announced his intention of visiting his aunt, and
had at last arrived at the out-of-the-way hacienda on the frontier
where she lived.

After riding about ten miles from the nearest station, leaving his
baggage to follow him on a pack-mule, he and his guide — a taciturn
Chilian hiiaso, or countryman — found themselves before a tumble-
down gate, leading into the tangle of garden already described, where
they first saw the old lady.

" I know who you are," she had said at once. " You are Mark
Lairt, come to get what you can."

" I have come in accordance with my uncle's wishes," said he,
speaking in Spanish, which he knew perfectly. " You are my aunt."

The old lady laughed a horrible laugh.

" Ave Tvlaria ! Your aunt ! "

She was a strange-looking old lady, with a very erect and graceful
way of holding herself. She appeared to be slight and well-made, but
her figure was shrouded in a long black jacket, that gave her a quaint
aspect. Over this she wore a thick black gauze inanfo, which
covered her head, and was drawn down over her face like a veil.
Mark could see no feature distinctly, and even her eyes were barri-
caded by large blue spectacles. She had a wonderfully elastic,
springy walk, and an energetic yet graceful way of swinging herself
round to speak to any one. Mark, as he stood hat in hand, holding
his horse by the gate, and greeting this odd old lady, thought it was
a strange experience, and instinctively felt that he was an unwelcome
guest.

" You can send your guide away," said Dona Pilar decidedly.
" He can have nothing here. Jose Mar-i-a ! Jose Ma-ri-a ! " she
shouted loudly, in a strong, clear voice.

The Senorita's Ghost. 475

A shrivelled old man appeared, an old man with red and bleared
eyes, and a toothless, mumbling mouth. He was dressed in a red
and yellow striped poncho, which hung loosely over his sharp shoulders,
and a flapping white cJmpaya hat was tied by greasy black ribbons
under his stubbly chin.

" Jose Maria," Dona Pilar had said then, " take the horse."

Jose Maria took it, and stood waiting. Mark pulled out some
money and paid his guide, explaining that he must return at once,
and asking him to send on the luggage as soon as possible. Though
he tipped the man well, it went to his heart to send off man and beast
without refreshment.

" Let him take back the horse, too," said the old lady. " There are
plenty here without it. Now follow me."

Mark walked along the garden path behind her, and was joined in
a few minutes by Jose Maria, who had delivered up the horse, and
who came hobbling after them.

And then it was that the old lady suddenly stopped, swung herself
round to speak to Mark, and pointed out the Senorita's grave.

When they entered the house. Dona Pilar turned to Mark again.
" A fine heritage ! " she said derisively. " Come, I will show you your
room."

They passed through the pafi'o, where the pavement was green with
age, and the damp that oozed from a stagnant pool, which had once
been the ornamental basin of a fountain, now all broken and leaking.
The Senora led the way through an empty room, into another pa^i'o
beyond ; their footsteps echoed strangely in the deserted place, and
rats scurried away disturbed by the sound. Doiia Pilar pulled out a
rusty key, and opened a door. The room into which they entered
had that peculiar damp, musty smell that comes in rooms with adol>e
walls, that have been too much shut up. Mark walked to the
window and looked out. The moon had risen and poured in its pale
light just as the day suddenly waned.

" A pretty old garden," said Mark, trying hard to be pleasant.

At the same instant something gleaming caught his eye. It was
the moonlight on the white stone of the Senorita's grave.

The old woman laughed the same horrible laugh.

"This is the Senorita's room," she said. "I have given it to
you."

Then she went out suddenly and shut the door. Mark looked
round the room. A heavy wooden bedstead stood in one corner.
It had been a four-poster once, but the top had been cut off. There
was a shabby chest of drawers, and a shabbier cupboard, two chairs
and an old wash-hand stand. A door led out of the room on either
side, communicating with the next rooms, as is usual in pafio houses.
Mark tried one door. It was locked : the other had the heavy cup-
board in front of it, reaching to the top of the frame, but not covering
the small window above the door, which disfigures most Chilian

2 F 2

47^ T^^i<^ ScTwritas Ghost.

rooms, and which very often is not made to open, and cannot even
serve the original intention of ventilation.

The French window which led to the verandah, had neither
curtains, blinds, shutters nor fastenings of any sort. He threw it
wide open, and stood looking out : the Senorita's grave had a sort of
fascination for him. Who was the Senorita ? He had never heard of
any one except his uncle and aunt. His uncle was dead, and his
aunt was the strange old lady ; but who was the Senorita ?

He was startled out of his meditations by the sound of a cracked
dinner-bell. Mark looked at his watch, and found that it was already
long past seven o'clock — a wonderfully late hour for the hacienda
dinner, which had evidently been postponed for him. He could
make little toilet, for his luggage had not yet arrived ; so, still in his
riding gear, he soon crossed the damp patio, where the frogs were
croaking loudly, and the bats were wheeling and circling in the
shadow.

" There does not seem to be a living soul here, except the Senora
and Jose Maria," thought Mark, and he subsequently found he was
right. Jose Maria cooked and served the dinner — a terribly greasy
meal ; Jose Maria made the beds ; Jose Maria watered the garden.
There was not another soul.

" This way," cried the Sefiora's voice to Mark, as he hesitated w^here
to go. " Here is the dining-room."

He entered a long low room with a bare tiled floor, lighted by one
small window almost covered with white flowering jessamine. There
was a long deal table, w^ith a piece of dirty brown American cloth at
one end, where two places were laid, with common white plates,
coarse tumblers, grimy-handled knives and folks and spoons. Mark
wondered what had become of the old family silver, of which he had
heard his uncle had a large store.

He was young and strong, and roughing it had no difficulties for
him. He rather enjoyed the experience, and wondered what was
coming next. The room was very dark : the whole house was dark,
and he could hardly see the Senora ; but he noticed that she
still wore a sort of veil, and that the black gloves had not been
taken off. " Perhaps that is just as well," thought the young man,
philosophically.

Jose Maria brought in a paraffin lamp that smoked and smelt
horribly. Then he popped down a big basin of casuela, in which
floated islands of grease in a thick yellow fluid. Jose Maria poured
out the beer, which was even viler than the casuela, and Jose Maria's
own fair hands plumped down a bit of bread beside each plate.

Mark was a philosopher ; he merely made up his mind that more
than a fair average of the proverbial peck of dirt would have to be
eaten during his stay at the hacienda.

Suddenly the old lady startled him by breaking the silence.

" Only you and I and the Senorita's ghost ! "

The Senoritas Ghost. 477

" Where is the ghost ? " asked Mark, cahnly.

" You find out for yourself, Mark Lairt, and don't ask questions,"
said she.

Jose Maria begun mumbling to himself as he served.

" She rests little enough in her grave. That know I — none better
than I." Then he gave a sudden chuckle, and as suddenly grew grave
again.

The Senora said nothing.

" How large is the farm, Senora ? " by way of again breaking the
silence. For the life of him, Mark could not bring himself to call the
horrible old woman "aunt."

" You wait till I am dead, Mark Lairt — dead and buried, and then
find out for yourself. You are not ' patron ' here yet."

" Not yet," repeated Jose Maria, like a ghostly echo.

" Senora, you misunderstand me. I only wish to find a subject that
interests you."

" Shut your mouth and say nothing, Mark Lairt ! You are a fool,
as your uncle was before you."

" Carainba I " said Jose Maria, unexpectedly. " A fool ! A
fool ! "

" Shut your mouth, too, Jose Maria," she cried angrily. " Do you
want to be out there too — out there, where the Sefiorita's grave
is?"

" What must be, must be ; but the Seiiorita was a devil."

" Prating old fool ! Devils don't die."

" Qiiien sahe .? Who knows ? " said the old man, and he nodded
his head significantly. "That's v/hat I think myself — devils don't
die."

Then he put a fowl down before the Senora, who carved it with
an ease that told of strong muscles.

She only spoke one other word to Mark during dinner, and that
was " More ? " jerking her head upwards, and looking first at Mark
and then at the dish.

The only thing that Mark found palatable was the fruit, and it was
delicious and abundant.

" Now smoke," said the Senora, suddenly getting up, when the
meal was over ; " and go to bed when you like. Good-night ! "

So Mark went out, and sat among the passion-flowers in the
verandah, for it was pleasanter than the stuffy, fusty rooms. He
wished he could hear a little more than the Senora seemed inclined to
tell him about his heritage, and he wondered how he could get hold
of his uncle's will, and find out what was really coming to him, so as
to take it and clear out as fast as he could.

Then he began to wonder about the Senorita. Certainly there was
a mystery concerning her, and he sat and smoked and mused in
the glorious moonlight. Suddenly his quick eye noticed a moving
shadow just below the verandah, which was raised several feet above

478 The Senorita's Ghost.

the level of the garden, and was approached by steps. He got up
and looked over, and there, with the moonshine full on it, he saw the
upturned face of a very beautiful woman, with strange and lovely eyes.
Her figure was lost in the shadow. In an instant Mark had vaulted
over the railing, and alighted in the garden below, but the face was
gone. He hunted round, and could see nothing, except that a tiny
door in the brickwork below the verandah was now tightly closed,
and he could swear it had been half-open when he passed it, on first
entering the house.

" By Jove ! the Senorita's ghost ! " said he to himself. " The
poor Senorita ! "

He fancied he heard a soft sigh somewhere, but not a sign of the
ghost was to be seen.

In a few minutes he heard in the distant J>afio the Senora's voice
calling angrily, " Jose Maria ! — Jose Maria, you old fool, go to bed.
You will be sleeping too late in the morning, Jose Maria."

Mark listened to the sound of the old man's tottering footsteps ;
then they died away, and he lit another cigarette, and sat watching
in hopes that the Senorita's ghost would appear again. But he grew
tired, and went off to bed, healthy and sleepy, and untroubled by
nerves, or by the dead Senorita or the living Sefiora.

His portmanteau had arrived by now, and as he was stooping and
unpacking it, by the light of the moon, which streamed in through
the open window, he suddenly became conscious of the uncanny
feeling that he was being watched. He looked up quickly, and
distinctly saw to his surprise, in the narrow window above the door,
behind the wardrobe, the same beautiful sad face watching him. It
disappeared into the shadow when their eyes met.

" I don't mind betting," said Mark to himself, " that there has
been foul play here. I beUeve the old demon herself murdered the
Senorita."

Then he undressed and went to bed, and slept the dreamless sleep
of youth and health, but the last thing his eyes rested on that night,
and the first thing they saw in the morning — at night bathed in
silvery moonshine, in the morning glowing in golden sunshine — was
the white stone, and the quaint mound of the Seiiorita's grave.

11.

The next morning Mark was awakened by the sunlight that streamed
in through the window. He jumped up and began to wonder about
the ways and means of tubbing, and sallied forth in pursuit of Jose
Maria.

The old man was lighting up the kitchen fire when Mark explained
his requirements.

" Cara?nba ! just like the old patron," said the old man gazing at

The Senoritas Ghost. 479

him with a sort of faint admiration in his looks. " Caramba ! " you
are Uke him too, Patroncito, and he, yes, he had the good heart. He
gave me flannel vvhen my pains were bad, and good cognac — good
cognac ! Ave Maria ! how good it was to warm up the stomach."

" All right, Jose Maria, you and I shall get along first-rate too, I am
sure. You go and buy your flannels the next time you go to town,
and I will see after the cognac. There's something for you."

" What is it ? " mumbled the old fellow, trembling with excitement ;
"ten dollars ! Ave Maria ! Do not tell the Senora. God will repay
you, Patroncito — God and the blessed Virgin ; and I will serve you —
yes, you will see."

" What about the bath ? "

" Diantre I there is the old patron's bath, but the Senora would kill
me if I took you there," and he chuckled to himself quietly. " Better
go to the estanque — the big tank up above the garden."

" All right ; but why can I not have my uncle's bath ? '*

" Because," said the old man mysteriously, lowering his voice
nervously — " because " — then he looked round furtively, and even
glanced over his shoulders, though he was standing with his back
to the wall — " there is the room next door."

" What of that ? "

" Leave that room alone, Patroncito ; better have nothing to do
with it. Let the devil look after his own work."

" Jose Mar-i-a — Jose Ma-ri-a," shouted Dona Pilar in the front
patio.

" Ya voy ! I am coming " ; and the old man hobbled off.

" Where is the estanque^ Jose Maria ? " Mark called after him,
determined to have his bath come what might.

" Up the hill behind the garden, where the willows grow,
Patroncito."

Mark had not much difficulty in finding it ; and after a refreshing
swim in the reservoir, which was shaded by the willows, whose green
foliage formed a deliciously cool screen, he made his way back to the
house again, entering by a back door, which he found open, and
which was an evident short cut.

As he passed through another back yard, which he had not seen
before, he looked unconsciously into a small room, and saw to his
surprise that it was a comparatively comfortably fitted-up bath-room,
evidently long disused.

" By Jove ! the bath-room ! " thought Mark, stepping in, inspired
with curiosity by the old man's words.

A strange odour pervaded the place. It was different from any-
thing he had ever smelt before, and it struck him as an extraordinary
mixture of antiseptics and corruption. He looked round, but there
was nothing to account for it. Then he noticed a door leading into
another room, and, approaching it, found that the strong smell,
whatever it might be, came from that direction. " Perhaps she

480 The Senoritas Ghost.

concocts some horrible medicines, or something ; dried black cats
and owls ; who knows ? " thought Mark ; " and that is why she does
not like any one to know about it."

Then it struck him that it would be easy to see into the room
from the verandah, and he had the curiosity to go round and try.
But the window was completely closed by boards, which were
evidently nailed from the inside.

He went back to his own room, and finished dressing, then he made
his way to the dining-room.

" You had better take a cup of tea and some bread, ]\Iark Lairt,"
said the Senora, who sat there in the dim light, for the creepers
over the small window almost darkened the room. "There is no
butter here," she went on.

Mark said politely that it was not of the slightest consequence.

" How long are you going to stay, Mark Lairt ? " said Dona Pilar.

He saw his opportunity, and told her that he was merely waiting
her pleasure to discuss affairs, take what he was entitled to and
be off.

The Sefiora looked at him triumphantly, he fancied. " And the
will, Mark Lairt ? "

" And the will," he repeated quietly.

" You are powerless without the will, fool."

" That remains to be proved, Doha Pilar ; if you are unwilling to
enlighten me, I suppose my uncle's lawyer will do so."

" The old lawyer is dead, and there is no other, Mark Lairt. You
had better go home, and wait until I am dead. You are not patron
yet."

" Why, Dona Pilar," replied he good-naturedly, " you might live a
hundred years. I am entitled to my share, whatever it is, irrespective
of you. Remember I am twenty-five."

" Twenty-five — Ave Maria ! twenty-five. If I had had you to bring
up, you would never have reached twenty-five."

"You are very kind. Dona Pilar," laughingly, "but here I am a
living certainty, and I am twenty-five."

" My grandfather was eaten up by pigs," said she slowly — " killed
and eaten by horrible pigs, fierce pigs, because a woman wished it so."

" I have not seen any about here though, Senora."

Doha Pilar jumped up, and swung out of the room. " Jose
Mar-i-a — Jose Ma-ri-a," she shouted, and w^ent off to find him.

A few minutes later, Jose Maria put his head round the door of the
dining-room, then stole in and shut it noiselessly.

" Patroncito," said he mysteriously, " she is dressing to ride to town.
She is after the money." He bent down, and began to pull off an
old worn boot full of holes.

" Poor old beggar," thought Mark; " a shame to let an old man
like that go about with such boots." Then he asked Jose if he had
no money to buy clothes with

The Senoritas Ghost 481

" Not a cent since the old patron died. Not a half cent. Food
and lodging only, food and — lodging ; " the word came out with a
jerk, caused by the effort in getting off his boot.

" Here," said Mark, giving him some money, " get yourself some
boots, man."

The old fellow waved it aside. "It is not that, Patroncito " — he had
pulled off a terribly old sock by now — " it is ////>," and out of the sock
he produced a small packet. " I have carried this eight long years
for you. The patron gave it to me before he died. ' When the
Patroncito comes, it will be in eight years, Jose Maria,' he said. ' I
can trust no one here, not even the lawyer; but I can trust you.'
And every year, I have cut a notch here on this very door, on the
morning of the purisima when he died — here on this very door,
Patroncito, for in this very room he gave it to me."

Mark took the packet with an exclamation of astonishment, and
pushed some money into the old withered hand. " Wait, Patroncito,"
whispered Jose Maria in a terrified whisper, " for the love of Heaven,
do not open it until she is gone. The dead and the living have eyes."
Then he shuffled away, and Mark saw him in a few minutes leading
round two horses. The Senora mounted one, and the old man the
other. Mark, who had intended to go too, whether she wished it or
not, in order to find out something about the money, was now only
too glad to see her off, and have a quiet time to look at the packet.

" I leave you," said Dona Pilar, " to the Senorita's ghost." And so
saying, she rode off, with the sound of horrible laughter.

Mark went back to the verandah, and taking out his pocket-knife,
cut the string of the sealed packet. The outside covering was of
oil-silk, and the letter inside was clean and well preserved.

It was from his uncle. The letter contained a statement of affairs,
and proved, to Mark's astonishment, that he had come in for a sum of
dollars that was equivalent to ^100,000, in bonds and hard cash;
and the property, and a comfortable annuity left to his aunt, were also
to fall to him at her death. There was besides a legacy of 50,000
dollars to Madelina, whom Mark concluded must have been the
Senorita, and fifty dollars a month was to be paid to his faithful
servant Jose Maria, in order that he should work no more, but end
his days in peace.

" Poor old fellow ! " thought Mark ; " much money or much peace
he has had since that old demon took up the reins. Why, there is
about 5000 dollars owing him by now. Never mind ! My lady, I
think I am about even with you now. I should not mind laying an
even bet that you murdered the Senorita."

Then he lit a cigar and began to think w^hat was the best course
to pursue ; and being a man of decision and having made up his mind
that the Senora was up to no good, he went out, caught the best
looking horse he could see in the corral^ saddled it, and started off to
town

482 The Senoritas Ghost.

He did not hurry himself much, as he did not want to overtake
Dona Pilar and awake her suspicions. So he rode leisurely.

It was an hour and a half before he reached the little town, and
the heat was intense by this time. He asked his way to the bank,
and went there first to make inquiries. He found, scarcely to his
surprise, that for the last year, the Seiiora had been drawing the
money out as quickly as possible, and that she had long since
carried away the strong box, containing the bonds, jewellery and
other valuables, which had been deposited there by his uncle. She
had already visited the bank that day and had drawn out the last of
the cash.

As no one had ever heard of the will, the bank manager had
imagined that it was all right, and that the Sefiora was sole heir, for
there had been no one to dispute the fact ; but they all felt greatly
puzzled to know what the old lady had done with the money.

Mark produced the will and explained the circumstances. " She
must have the money in the house," said the bank manager, "for it
is impossible that she has taken it away. She knows no one."

Then he advised Mark to take the advice of the best lawyer in
Chile, adding that he would need a pretty sharp one to outwit the
Senora. " It is only within the last year that we have seen much of
her. The Senorita used to manage everything."

" Who was the Seiiorita ? " asked Mark. But he could get little
satisfaction, for no one knew much about her. She was supposed
to be the daughter of Dona Pilar's first husband, for the Senora was a
widow when Mark's uncle had married her late in life, and Madelina
had come to live in the hacienda when Dona Pilar became mistress
there. She had died very suddenly about thirteen months before
Mark's visit. She was a very beautiful woman.

Of one thing, and one thing only, Mark felt sure, and that was
that she had met with foul play, and that her memory was much
maligned.

He rode quickly back to the hacienda, his head full of projects,
and arrived at the house before Doiia Pilar had returned. He
unsaddled his horse, groomed it, fed it, and turned it into the corral ;
then went to sit and smoke in the verandah.

" If the Senorita's ghost is about," he thought to himself, " now is
her time."

But though he sat there for a good hour, he never saw a sign of
the beautiful face that had made such an impression on him.

In course of time the Senora and Jose Maria returned.

" I hope you have had a pleasant day, Senora,": said he, meaningly.

" A pleasanter day than you are ever hkely to have, Mark Lairt,"
said she.

" Look here, Senora, you and I need not waste many words
between us. I, too, have been to the bank ; I want to know what
you have done with my uncle's money — with my money ?

The Senoritas Ghost. 483

Jose Maria, who had crept up noiselessly, gave a startlingly sudden
cackle, and as suddenly grew grave.

" Go off about your business, old fool ! " said the Seiiora sharply,
" or you will laugh the wrong way. And you, Mark Lairt, where is
the will?"

" I know where the will is, Scnora, and you know where the money
is, and I mean to have it."

His words evidently took her aback. " What imp gave you the
will ? "

" Never you mind, Seiiora ; all you have to do is to give up my
money."

But the Senora rushed past him suddenly, and Mark saw her no
more that evening, for Jose Maria, with a grim chuckle, came and
bade him dine alone. The Senora was indisposed.

Mark had a quiet dinner, and went to bed early. His window, as
usual, stood wide open, but the moon was not yet up. Mark got
into bed, and began to read, but before long, the same uncontrollable
desire to look up came over him, and raising his eyes, he saw, as he
expected, the beautiful pale sad face with the strange eyes, the face
of the Senorita's ghost again watching him, and again it disappeared
when their eyes met.

" Madelina," he called, impelled by a strong desire to speak to her —
" Madelina ! " She did not reappear, though he waited and waited
in hopes of seeing her again. He could read no more, the book
had lost its interest for him, and at last ^he put out the light and
went to sleep.

Mark awoke with a consciousness that something was happening.
He opened his eyes, and looked out through the open window. The
moon had gone down now, and it was dark, very dark. But moving
about outside, in the direction of the Senorita's grave, he saw for a
moment the faint twinkle of a light, that suddenly came and as
suddenly disappeared. He sprang out of bed and crept into the
garden.

His heart was beating violently, for he felt that he was about to
discover the truth concerning the injured dead. The young man had
a strange Quixotic feeling, that he would like to clear the Senorita's
name, to prove that the beautiful pleading face that haunted him
belonged to a good and maligned woman, who had been foully done
to death, and not to, as Jose Maria said, a devil.

As he approached the grave, he saw the moving light more clearly,
but it was stationary now, standing on the ground, and he recognised
it as a dark lantern. He did not go near, but, screened by some
shrubs, stood quietly waiting and watching the weird scene. Mark
saw it was the Senora, for though her face was hidden, the light fell
full on her figure, and she was — he found to his horror — like some
terrible loathsome vampire, digging up the Senorita's grave. His blood
ran cold. There was the cruel murderess, not content with her

484 T'Ae Senoritas Ghost.

horrible work, but even after the death of her victim bent on in-
sulting the wretched body. He could see her stooping over the place
where the poor Senorita lay ; stooping and digging ; until he heard
the thud of the spade hitting upon something which resounded to
the blow. It was the coftin. Then the fiend, for woman he could
not think her, bent forward triumphantly and forced open the lid
with wonderfully little difficulty, looked in, and seemingly gloated
over what lay there. Then she turned round, and, lifting a small black
box that stood on the ground beside her, put it into the cotiin.
Mark saw her noiselessly clap her hands, and dance a weird and
ghastly witch dance of triumph and joy round the grave. She
stooped, and twirled, and twisted, and capered, like a hag distraught,
waving her arms and gesticulating silently, and laughing a terrible
mirthless laugh, low and almost beneath her breath. Then she
quietly shut the lid and fastened it, threw a few spadefuls of earth
over the coffin, and scraped it together with the spade. Her strength
seemed almost superhuman as she replaced the heavy blocks of stone
that covered the grave, finally smoothing the disturbed earth round
the edges that no trace should be left to betray her. Mark, when
he saw that she had almost finished, slipped noiselessly and quickly
back to his room, and from his bed watched the twinkling light come
slowly up the garden. As he expected, it approached his room, and
the Senora stood quietly at the window, as if to listen. She flashed
the lantern in his face, but he never blenched and lay with closed
eyes, apparently sound asleep, until the old woman stole away as she
had come.

But Mark could not sleep : the horrible scene haunted him ; and
he was puzzled to know what to do. Of two things he felt convinced ;
first, that Madelina had been murdered by Dona Pilar ; and secondly,
that the old woman had hidden the stolen money in her victim's
coffin.

Suddenly, while tossing about restlessly, he heard a strange sound.
Some one v/as moving in the house nov\\

Mark listened intently. What it was, he could not say, but it seemed
as if some very heavy weight were being dragged along the floor.
Burning with curiosity he jumped out of bed again, but just as he
opened his door he heard the sound of footsteps slow and laboured, as
if heavily burdened. He peeped out cautiously, and saw first the faint
glimmer of light, as the Senora approached, crossing the side of the
patio opposite to his room, and then her muffled figure with the
lantern fastened to her head, in some way, while she, with both
hands, dragged along what appeared to be a sack ; and at the same
time the house became permeated with the strange odour. Mark
watched her disappear into her own room, and pull the sack
inside too, but she did not shut the door. In a few minutes she
slipped out again, and passed to the far patio. jNIark followed
cautiously, making no sound. The Seiiora disappeared into the

The Scnoritas Ghost. 485

room next the bath-room. Then there came a noise as of something
heavy being pushed along the floor, and Dona Pilar emerged with a
long case which she pulled behind by means of two ropes. Mark
was curious to know what it was, and felt convinced that it was some
of his stolen property. He slipped back to his own room, and
watched the proceedings through a chink of the door, as before.
When the old lady passed, Mark saw that it was a long-shaped case
with sacking fastened round the middle, but he could make out
nothing more. Doiia Pilar reached her own door at last, and the
case being long, was awkward to pull round the corner. One end
struck sharply against a small cupboard that stood in front of the
Sefiora's door, and served as a stand for a filtering stone. She turned
round and bent down, the light falling full on the case. Mark saw
to his horror that it was a black coffin. He could even see the point
of a white cross painted on the lid, and just showing beneath the
sacking. Doiia Pilar pulled it in with little difficulty, and shut and
locked her door.

Mark went back to bed more puzzled and horror-stricken than
ever. He felt on the eve of some even more terrible discovery, and
hardly closed an eye all night. But no further sounds reached him,
though he listened long and intently, and the mystery seemed very
deep.

He feel asleep at last, and slept long and late, the heavy sleep
that often follows a wakeful night. When he roused himself, he
found to his surprise that it was nine o'clock. He got up and went
out to his open-air bath, and returned refreshed and glowing. As
he passed the kitchen regions old Jose Maria hobbled up, and said,
with a sudden chuckle : " The Senora is indisposed still, Patroncito.
You will not see her to-day. The devil is about," he added
significantly.

Then Mark asked him what he meant.

" What will be, will be," he answered vaguely ; and hurried away.

Mark took his morning disayuno^ or breakfast of tea and bread,
and soon sauntered down the garden on pretence of smoking, but
really to examine the Senorita's grave. He could ^ee the freshly-
turned earth, just showing at the edges of the stone, but to the
uninitiated there was not a sign to tell the tale of desecration.

Musing deeply, Mark walked up and down under the shade of the
peomo trees, and listened to the ceaseless calls of the wild birds.
And then, glancing up by chance, his quick eye caught sight for a
moment of the pale beautiful face, set in a halo of green and feathery
foliage, and, as before, watching him intently. It was the face that
was in his heart continually, the face of the Senorita's ghost.

" Madelina, Madelina," he cried, holding out his arms. " What is
it, tell me ? For the love of heaven tell me."

The white face flushed with a look of ineffable sweetness, and
vanished. Mark fancied he heard a light footstep, and thought there

486 The Senorita's Ghost

was a sound of rustling leaves, but it was only imagination, for no
sign of anything could he find. He searched the garden feverishly ;
he called quietly, but it was all in vain.

Unable to bear the inaction and suspense any longer, Mark took a
horse and rode to the town again, and went to see his new friend, the
bank-manager, who was a pleasant young Englishman, a little more
than his own age. He still hesitated as to the advisability of taking
a lawyer's advice about the matter of the money, being, to tell the
truth, principally anxious to first discover for himself the secret of
the Senorita's fate.

He rode back and reached the hacienda very late ; it was already
dark. He unsaddled his horse, and, as usual, groomed and fed it
himself, and turned it into the corral. Then he went in.

Jose Maria met him. " The Sefiora is dead," said he shortly.

" Good heavens ! " exclaimed Mark. " Dead ? What is it ?
What do you mean ? How terribly sudden ! "

" A matter of thirteen months."

" What do you mean, Jose Maria ? "

But the old man was chuckling and mumbling to himself
childishly.

" Come in, come in and see her. She is laid out fine. She said
you were to come. The devil said so."

Mark followed amazed.

Jose Maria threw wide open the door of the Seiiora's bedroom.
The curtains, for it had curtains, had been drawn, and the room was
very dark, except for four candles at the four corners of an open
coffin that stood on trestles. The lid, with a white painted cross, lay
on the ground at one side. Mark recognised it instantly.

" Go and look ! Go and look ! " whispered Jose Maria.

The young man mastered his repugnance, and drew near ; at the
same time repelled and attracted with a horrible attraction.

He drew back with a start.

" What ! Great Heavens ! That ! — that ! — that is not the
Senora ! "

For in the coffin lay a terrible, awesome, dried-up mummy-like
corpse ; a frightful, distorted, shrunken thing.

And then came a strangely light step, and a gentle rustling sound
that made Mark look up. There, on the other side of that terrible
body, stood the beautiful, swaying figure, of which, until now, he had
not seen the face, the figure of the Senorita's ghost.

Mark forgot everything ; forgot the horror, the dreadful corpse, the
awful mystery, and undoubted crime of it all — forgot everything but
that beautiful woman.

" Madelina ! Madelina ! for the love of heaven speak to me !
Tell me who you are ! "

In an instant he was beside her, and found no fading, fleeting
ghostly shadow, but the warm, living presence of a glorious woman.

The Seiioritas Ghost. 487

" Tell me, trust me ! Madelina, trust me ! Let me save you
from this horrible life. For God's sake, trust me ! I love you !
Oh ! my soul ! I love you ! "

His heart, his chivalry, his manhood, and his very soul were stirred.
He would save and protect her, this beautiful and maligned creature ;
he would deliver her from this living death.

And then she spoke.

" Dost thou love me, Mark ? "

His answer was to catch her passionately in his arms. " Come out
from this awful room," he whispered wildly. " Madelina, for Heaven's
sake, come out."

" Mark, I love thee. I have loved thee since thou didst first come.
I have watched and watched thee. But the Senora kept me im-
prisoned, and said I was dead, Mark — dead and buried. What
could I do ? Thou dost know how wicked she was. How hard and
cruel to thee ! "

" Oh, my love, it is all over ! Come away. Have no more fear, for
I will protect thee."

" She hated me so, Mark. Was it not strange that she could have
no pity ? "

" Strange ! oh, my soul, terrible ! impossible ! The eld fiend. She
was a demon."

And then a strange chuckle made Mark look round ; it sounded as
if it came from the coffin ; but it was from Jose Maria.

The old man seemed moved by some intense overmastering excite-
ment ; his eyes burned and gleamed ; his face worked convulsively.
He pointed his withered shaking hand at Madelina, and cried in a
shrill clear voice :

" Demon ! liar ! I will speak the truth, and save my Patroncito."

" She, she, herself is the Senora ! she murdered the old patrona
thirteen months ago, and kept her preserved in the room next the
bath-room ; it was to get the money, and she has hidden it in the
Sefiorita's "

But before he could say the word, Madelina, with a terrible yell
of madness, had torn herself from Mark and dashed upon the old man;
upsetting the coffin, and throwing down two of the candles, in her
headlong rush.

" Fool ! I kill you ; " and before Mark could stir to save him, she
had plunged a dagger into Jose Maria's heart.

He sank down without a sound. Then the wretched woman turned
to Mark.

" Mark ! Mark ! believe it not ! Mark, my beloved, my soul ! my
heart ! " she held out her white hands. " Say thou dost not believe
it. Mark, I can restore thee the money, I can give thee all and
more. Say thou dost not believe it."

" Stand back, murderess ! — stand back ! I believe it every word.'

For, as the old man was speaking, a thousand things sprang into

488 The Senoritas Ghost.

Mark's mind, and cried out, " It is the truth." The form, the figure,
the action and voice of MadeHna, the mystery of the room next the
bathroom, and the horrible corpse — the whole thing seemed to be
explained too clearly now. And whatever doubt might have been
left in his mind, vanished, when he himself, with his own eyes,
witnessed the murder of Jose Maria.

" Thou believest it ! Thou lovest me not ! Die then, fool, die ! "
and she dashed at him with her dagger.

But Mark was strong and well prepared. He caught her arm, and
wrenched the dagger from her, flinging it far away into the patio^
where it fell with a splash into the stagnant pool. And then ensued
a frightful struggle, for the woman fought with the strength of a
maniac. The white fingers clutched his throat, and it was almost
more than he could do to free himself and overpower her. He
dragged her out at last, and remembering that there was a storeroom
next door which could be fastened firmly from the outside, managed
to reach it, and thrust her in, and draw the heavy bolt.

He hurried away, leaving her beating wildly against the door, and
filling the house with terrible laughter, and shrieks that made his
blood run cold.

As he passed the Senora's room again he saw, by the light of the
two candles that remained burning, the terrible mummy lying huddled
up on the floor, half beneath the overturned coffin, and the corpse of
Jose Maria stretched on the lid with the white painted cross that just
showed beneath his poncho.

Mark hardly knew how he got to the corral and saddled his horse,
but he only breathed freely when he found himself galloping at full
speed along the narrow track that led to the town.

He drew rein at the bank manager's door, and dismounted more
dead than alive. But he pulled himself together, and told his tale,
and two hours later, the manager, the Sub-Delegado and six police-
men, were galloping back with him to the scene of the murder

As they reached the top of the hill that overlooked the hacienda
a lurid glare lit up the sky, and the valley was filled with dense smoke.
The old house was in flames.

At the gate a troop of terrified horses that had jumped out of the
corral stood huddled together trembling. They were the only living
things there were near the house, for the farm buildings were at
some distance off.

The front part of the house was already entirely destroyed, the
roof had fallen in, and nothing but the burning walls remained
glowing like a red hot oven. The dead and the living were gone.
Victims and murderess had alike disappeared together.

Mark staggered up against his friend. " Keep up, man ; it was the
best thing that could happen. She was a raving maniac."

There was nothing to be done. The murderess had taken the law
into her own hands, and set fire to the house. At least, that was

The Seiiofitas Ghost, 489

Mark's supposition ; there was no other way to account for the fire,
but neither he nor any one else would ever know the truth with
certainty.

"And now," said the manager, "let us examine the Sefiorita's
grave and find the money."

They set to work, raised the stone, and uncovered, not a coffin,
but a large box, which contained, as was expected, a great many
packets of money and valuables, and a small iron case v/hich the
manager recognised at once.

" I congratulate you," said he to Mark ; " this is your heritage ! "

There was over p^i 20,000 in bonds and hard cash, besides
jewellery, silver, and many other valuables.

Mark merely shook his friend's hand ; he could not trust himself
to speak. The money seemed as nothing now in his eyes. It was
not worth one thousandth part of the awful experience he had just
gone through. Wherever he looked, wherever he turned, he was
haunted continually by the thought of that beautiful face, and of its
awful secret.

He realised everything, sold the property for what it would fetch,
and started for Europe as soon as it was possible for him to get away.
And in the peace and quiet of an English home he does his best to
forget the burning memory of those few days in the hacienda^ and
of the horrible, terrible secret of the Sefiorita's Ghost.

-^^^sn^^^^gj^:!^

TRANSPLANTED.

" Fair, fragrant flower, from woodland mazes torn,
Keeping sweet watch on haunted, holy ground.
Art thou not pining, broken and forlorn.
Within the crowded city's gloomy bound ?

" The bee falls faint whose kisses wooed thy leaves.
The laughing breezes die that fanned thy feet ;
The sunny glade that nursed thy beauty grieves ;

They call to thee, ' Why hast thou left us, sweet ? ' "

A perfumed whisper, floating softly through
The city, murmurs back to woodlands gay :
" Where tears of pity fall, there falls the dew ;
And honest toil sheds light on darkest day."

C. E. Meetkerke.

VOL. LIV. 2 G

490

IN THE LOTUS-LAND.

By Charles W. AVood, F.R.G.S., Author of "Letters from
Majorca," "The Bretons at Home," etc., etc.

T F, on first entering
-^ Cairo, we had
been struck with its
modern appearance,
we soon found that
there were two sides
to the shield ; le revers
de la medaille ; things
new and old.

Modern Cairo, with
its hotels, houses, and
semi - palaces, sur-
rounded by gardens
in which Egyptian
and European flowers
mingle their perfume
side by side, and the
Western acacia and
the Eastern palm
grow together i n
friendly rivalry : all
this is the outcome
of necessity. Cairo
has had to move with
the times, like other
places and people who do not wish to be left behind in the race.
But we soon found that many traces of ancient Cairo still remain ;
many a picture of Oriental life, crowded with interest, offering constant
variety to the visitor, whose attention is never for a moment allowed
to flag.

That Cairo should possess so much that is modern is to be
regretted, but necessity has no law. The city, surrounded by its
walls and innumerable gateways, had, like the river, to overflow its
boundaries. Part of the walls, many of the gateways, are still there ;
and when the visitor turns his face towards the citadel, and passes
into the more ancient quarters of the town, he may forget the modern
element that lies behind him.

But grandeur and magnificence must not be expected. The streets-

Donkey-Boy, Cairo.

In the LoUis-Land. 491

are narrow, the houses often small ; for in bygone days splendour and
luxury were the exception, not the rule of life.

On the other hand, in quieter streets not given up to trade and
traffic, there are, enclosed in unpretending gateways and behind dead
walls, immense mansions where the rooms are some of them halls of
vast height, fitted up with an Eastern gorgeousncss dazzling to the
eye, appealing to the senses. Here the master of the house does
you honour. You recline upon soft divans, whilst an Arab servant,
in picturesque costume, hands you coffee in small egg-like cups re-
posing in gold and silver filigree holders. And if, as once happened
to ourselves, the host speaks no language but Arabic, the dragoman
has to be brought in as interpreter.

Cairo seems to furnish every variety of Eastern life. As we have
said, the numbers of costumes, the different types of face, appear
endless and bewildering, until they have been classified and learned
by heart. This adds immeasurably to the interest of the place.
Everything then has its meaning and interpretation ; you no longer
walk through streets full of riddles, mystery, and the unknown.

And yet we must not forget that Cairo, with all its age, is young in
comparison with most Eastern cities. There are two distinct Cairos,
separated from each other by more than two miles of roadway lying
beyond the suburbs of the more modern city. Old Cairo reposes on
the banks of the Nile, near the picturesque island of Roda and its
venerable Nilometer.

Let us turn for a moment to the more modern Cairo.

It is the largest and by far the most interesting city in Africa ; and
lying in a plain between the Nile and the Mokattam Hills, its site
is well chosen. Nowhere else do we find so perfect a picture of
Eastern life, or realize so thoroughly the familiar scenes of the Arabian
Nights. What we once looked upon as fairy-tales and tales of magic,
we now behold as almost facts and realities. The very people in
the classic tales, the words they uttered, the incidents that fell to
them — all this seems to have come to pass. It is gazing upon life
from the dead.

We turn and look for Aladdin and his famous lamp, and see
lamps in abundance, any one of which might be the very one that
worked the wonders. The shops and bazaars are full of ornaments
which flash and glitter on all sides, and reflect surrounding scenes a
thousand and a thousand-fold. A myriad glass balls flashing in all
directions might be the jewels that hung on the trees in the enchanted
gardens. We see fifty forms of youths with interesting faces and soft
sparkling eyes, clothed in the cool Eastern dress that is full of un-
studied grace. Any one of them might be Aladdin himself searching
for his lamp, after the wicked merchant had become possessed of it
by his cunning. A hundred old, ugly and grey-headed old Arabians
might be the crafty old merchant after he had once more lost the
lamp and gone back to poverty and punishment.

2 G 2

492

In the LoUis-Land.

Many of the narrow and irregular streets seem to have been
built without forethought or design. Yet they are full of interest,
with their deep tones, their traces of Moorish and Saracenic archi-
tecture, their multiplicity of light and projecting windows, made of
that beautifully-carved and perforated fretwork called " Mushrabeeyeh."

This, the true Saracenic art, makes a fairyland of Cairo. Nothing
is more interesting, nothing more characteristic than to stand at the
end of a street and gaze upon its narrowing perspective. Far down,
the houses seem to meet, the windows to kiss each other. Here and

^::vl'^"i

'^^'^^^tc^

^^^^*«~%:^

Mushrabeeyeh Window of a Harem.

there, at an open lattice, an Eastern lady looks out upon her limited
world. Her face is provokingly veiled ; for the beauty of the large,
liquid, dark eye, which is visible, seems to assure us that the whole
countenance, uncovered, would be a charming vision. But the
barbarous Eastern laws forbid this exposure, and so in the East one
of the great privileges of life — the beauty and gentle influence of
woman — is wanting.

Of what is she thinking, this veiled lady at the half-open lattice ?
Is she wondering how it fares with her sisters in colder climes ? Does
she know of the liberty they possess ? That, instead of going about

In the Lotus-Land. 493

with veiled faces, or being shut up in harems, they are the equals of
their lords, have all honour done unto them as unto the Aveaker vessel ?
Does she long for the same liberty and privileges ? Would she
be free to come and go according to fancy — to throw aside for
ever these shackles of form and face, these destroyers of grace and
movement — to boldly scour the desert, see distant shores, breathe
the free air of foreign lands ?

How is it with these women of Egypt ? Do they rebel against
their condition, which must rob life of all its sweetness and grace, and
make it a penance rather than what it was intended to be — a source
of delight, of praise and thanksgiving for life and breath and all
things good and pure and beautiful? We never saw a veiled face
at a window, or a woman walking the streets with all this Eastern
disguise and encumbrance, but we longed to ask her a multitude of
questions — discover whether she was happy and contented, looked
upon herself as a part of heaven's divine creation, reserved for
contentment in this world, happiness in the next : or thought of
herself as a mere animated machine, in which ideas and impulse and
aspiration must be stifled, and life can be only tolerated.

No doubt they have their compensations. There is sympathy in
numbers ; the Eastern woman sees that all her sisters are treated
alike ; she is neither better nor worse off than they. The back
is generally fitted to the burden, and habit becomes second nature.
So the daily round goes on. The days and the years pass ; and for
twelve centuries the women of Egypt have borne their captivity.

If the street with its narrowing perspective, down which you are
gazing, is a quiet one, probably one or two Eastern figures will
stand out characteristically : a woman on foot, covered with the
habara or black mantle and hood, looking as if she were on her
way to some house of mourning, or to join in some funeral pro-
cession ; though blue, and not black, is the sorrowing garb in Egypt.
Or a man mounted on a donkey is wayfaring at a dignified and
leisurely pace — the men's dress is as imposing and graceful as
the women's is the opposite — though the bright, sure-footed little
donkeys can trot briskly enough, and will go on for hours with
untiring energy.

The soft-eyed houri, from behind her mushrabeeyeh window, looks
after the retreating Arab, whose silken garment declares him to be
of her own rank in life, whilst his green turban announces a
descendant of the Prophet ; and she gives a sigh to her own incar-
ceration, and like all daughters of Eve — and sons of Adam, for that
matter — longs for the forbidden. It is impossible but that she draws
a comparison between the inequalities of the sexes ; but here there
must be no rising in rebellion. They have to accept life as they
find it, and there can be no thought of change. It would be well if
those ladies of England who agitate for " women's rights " — which is
only another term for men's rights — could be transported for a time

Street in Cairo.

In the LoUis-Land. 495

to the East and take the place of their subdued sisters. They
would return with improved views of their own happier lot.

We pass up the quiet street, and turn into a wider thoroughfare
just in time to see a dashing equipage, with its Sais or runners carry-
ing wands, keeping well in front of the horses, and shouting their
warnings for all foot passengers, donkeys, and humbler vehicles to
make way. Fast as the horses gallop, the strong, fleet young Sais,
trained to the work, are always ahead. They are lightly clothed,
generally barefooted, and their free and well-formed limbs are fleet as
the deer.

But Oriental life is best seen in the older part of the town. In
the new suburbs, where the thoroughfares are wide and wholesome,
and you breathe pure air, few ever venture except from necessity.
Even the public gardens are seldom visited by the populace of Cairo.
They keep to their close and crowded quarters, in which they seem to
delight, asking for nothing better. The beautiful in nature, the form
and colour and perfume of flowers, the trees raising their graceful
heads and casting long shadows across the chequered pathways, or
bending to the evening breeze, the song and flight of the birds — all
these they look upon as unfamiliar objects, outside their lives, with
which they are not in harmony. Nothing surprised us more than
the comparative neglect of these public gardens, where we sometimes
wandered in solitude.

The more ancient streets are bewildering in their crowd and noise ;
and often, as we trotted through them on donkeys, we seemed
confronted by an animated wall, beyond which there could be no
passing.

Then our dragoman with his powers of persuasion, mental and
physical, would take the lead, and it was wonderful how he cleared
a passage. Many a hard word was sent after him, as without
ceremony he rode roughshod over a slow-moving Arab. To re-
monstrance he was supremely indiflerent ; or perhaps a well applied
cut from his whip was all the notice he condescended to give. As a
rule, you might shout yourself hoarse to these pedestrians, and they
paid no more attention to the warning than if they had been deaf
as adders. Only when the whip came down upon their shoulders,
or the ass, roughly urged forward, overturned their balance, would they
move out of the way in self-defence.

It was certainly very often exasperating, and we hardly wondered
at Aleck's resorting to strong measures. So crowded were the streets,
that a donkey passing quickly up would often cause quite a surging
amongst the people. All the dragomans were not like ours in this
respect ; they were sons of peace and submission ; kept well within
all rules ; never attempted any self-assertion ; and no doubt lost many
an opportunity to those they piloted. Yet Aleck's method, with
any one else, might have been a failure. We often feared a dispute
— at the very first sign of which we should have given him up.

<

In the LohiS'Land. 497

But his daring, coolness, commanding attitude, " as if to the manner
born," carried him through everything.

" I learned to obey in the English army, sir," he was fond of
saying ; " now I make these wretched Egyptians obey me. They are
a miserable set, always wanting backsheesh, never satisfied. I give
them as little as I can."

And to do Aleck justice, he made a small coin go a very long
way. Most of the other dragomans distributed backsheesh with a
largesse worthy of a royal hand. At the end of the day, their own
day's pay was a ridiculously small item in comparison with the fees
lavishly bestowed right and left.

But if the streets are narrow, the byways are often so much more
so, that two donkeys meeting will pause and stare, and wonder which
must politely backj into a friendly doorway. The mushrabeeyeh
windows are so close to each other that it is often easy to pass from
house to house without troubling the front doors.

The main streets resound with cries ; movement and colour dazzle
the eye ; all the tints of the rainbow seem to have suddenly become
detached and animated. Wherever you look there is a flashing of life
and motion. Many-coloured turbans resemble a garden in which
the flowers are performing a Dervish dance. The dark blue dresses
of the Copts stand out in contrast with the yellow of the Jews. Not
less distinctive are the different types of feature.

Here and there amongst them a woman is making her way, dressed
in dark blue or black, silver or copper ornaments gleaming upon her
wrists and ankles ; the face, as ever, carefully veiled. Her hands, if
visible, are generally stained with henna, a brownish yellow tint,
looked upon as a great beauty. Many of the humbler women are
tattooed, but in the streets all this is hidden by their disguise. They
walk as if they had an object in life ; and this is more than can be said
of the men, who go about their work as if for them the sun never set,
and life was nothing but a pastime. The women of the upper classes
are graceful and well-made, but from their out-door costume this
would never be suspected.

As we make way, the crowd does not diminish. There are cries
on all sides. Many a merchant is standing at his shop door sur-
veying the scene. As we have said, it is the Arabian Nights over
again. Everything is full of interest and magic. At many a street
corner, sitting on a stool, with a tray on a stand before him, a
money-changer may be seen. He looks sharp and wide-awake, as
if searching for prey. His eyes glitter like a falcon's ; his long
fingers have taken a chronic clutching attitude from the habit of
gathering up gold and silver and handling paper money. All is fish
that comes to his net, and he will take heavy toll in the way of
. exchange unless you are well up in the coin of the country. He
generally speaks sufificient English to bewilder you, so that for the
moment you almost forget that two and two make four.

498 In the Lotus-Land.

Open to the streets, we notice here and there, as we pass through
the crowd, the schools in which ^the young Arabs are given their
Hmited education.

The schoolmaster is called a Jikeh, and pursues the ordinary system
with his pupils ; w^hilst they, mischievously inclined, give him as much
trouble as possible. His voice is often raised in anger, and now and
then his hand administers a well-applied reproof. Human nature is
the same everywhere in its broad outlines : and Solomon's advice
seems to hold good in all countries. You may watch the proceedings
for a few minutes ; but if, at last, you attract the fikeh's attention,
he will manifest displeasure, even threaten to treat you with as little
ceremony as one of his own boys. His hand looks formidable, and
discretion being the better part of valour, you move on.

These schools are never large, but they are numerous. Why they
are so public it is difficult to say. The boys' attention often
distracted makes order more difficult to keep.

The process of education is amusing to watch. Their chief task is
learning the Koran, and as the boys recite verse after verse, they
sway their body to and fro, as if, by and by, they meant to qualify
for dervishes. Many of the little faces have bright black eyes
brimming over with fun, and intelligent expressions.

A school is also attached to most of the public fountains. The
teaching is chiefly religious. As we have said, the great end and aim
is for the boys to learn the Koran by heart, so that later on they may
be able to repeat it over and over again. The mere repetition is con-
sidered meritorious, and forms an act of devotion. Like the Roman
Catholics, the Mohammedans have their rosary ; a chaplet provided
with ninety beads, for the ninety prayers containing, each prayer, one
of the ninety-nine names of Allah. That the boys are able to learn
so much by heart speaks well for their memory ; for a great deal of
the Koran is obscure and unintelligible, and nothing is explained to
them — probably because the schoolmasters understand very little
more about the matter than themselves.

Many of the sheykhs and patriarchs are of the highest order of
intelligence, but the ordinary instructors are often less gifted. When
a boy has learned the whole of the Koran, his education is supposed
to be finished. A great family gathering then takes place, at which
the schoolmaster is chief guest. He has often gained the honour after
much labour and anguish of spirit, and nervous wear and tear, and
forcible persuasion. We have seen that there is no royal road to learning.

These public fountains are reservoirs, filled with Nile water
brought up on the backs of camels. They are numerous, and supply
the people gratuitously with water. Generally they are handsome
erections, ornamented with columns and surrounded with iron
railings. The fountain consists of two storeys, and in the upper storey
is held the school, where the children are taught a little reading,
writing, and arithmetic, in addition to the Koran.

In the Lotus-Land.

499

Fountains and schools are the result of endowment by pious
people in days gone by.

In many a doorway may be seen the curious, somewhat patient
and resigned face of the seller of date-bread, a preparation not very
tempting to look at. He too sits on a low stool, with a great round

m

Water-seller.

brazier before him supporting a large round tray, where the curious
stuff is baking. Half his time is spent in using a willow whisk to
keep the flies from attacking his store and diminishing his profits.
Luckily, there is a great demand for his date-bread. Not only are
grown-up men and women his customers, but the donkey and other

500 In the Lotus-Land.

street boys go in for it ; just as our street boys in England patronize
the apple and pear barrows, and those delectable street ices which
to them seem more delicious than nectar and ambrosia.

Many of these people ply their trades in the open air, and having
no rent to pay, manage to exist upon what would be starvation to
an Englishman in the same rank of life. So little is needed in
this cHmate to keep body and soul together.

Conspicuous in the crowd are the water-carriers. These perhaps
work harder than any others for a livelihood and are the worst paid.
This seller of water looks a curious figure, as he wearily peram-
bulates the streets with his heavy load ; a strange-looking, inflated
goatskin, slung across his back. He often also carries a porous bottle,
called a kuUeh, in his hand, with which he offers a draught to the
passer-by.

For two-thirds of the year he has to fetch the water from the
distant banks of the Nile ; but during the months of overflow he can
draw it from the canal which runs through the city. In return for
the draught some give him the smallest possible coin, whilst others
give him only their blessing. There are sellers of other refreshing
drinks, such as sherbet, and a sweet decoction prepared from dates
and other fruits.

Others, again, sell the various sweetmeats peculiar to the East, of
which starch is generally the foundation. These they will exchange
for old clothes, or anything else capable of being turned into money.

Few of the poor cook at home, buying their food ready prepared
from these wandering merchants : unsavoury-looking jellies, fish and
meat pies or puddings, and so forth, of which the aroma alone ought
to satisfy an ordinary appetite. Their purchase made, they squat
down cross-legged in the street, or a friendly doorway, and devour
their food with great relish. There is no ceremony here, no lingering
in conversation or exchanging of courtesies. It it said that thirty
thousand of these cooks walk the streets of Cairo, or preside at
stalls, thus providing for the wants of the ordinary population. They
visit all the highways and byways, the courts and alleys, and mingle
their cries with the cries of the water-sellers and a hundred other
sellers, until the air seems as full of sound as it is of colouring.

Fruit and vegetables, the sweet but unpleasant sugar-cane, pre-
pared maize, form no small part of the seller's stock in trade. The
fruit stalls are certainly the least objectionable and the most tempting.
Lupins grow in great abundance and are very popular. They are
called " children of the river," because they have to be soaked in Nile
water for some time before they are ready for use. Nearly all fruits
and vegetables are found in their season. Of dates there are said
to be twenty-seven kinds. Brandy is made from them ; and in the
oases of the desert a certain wine is sometimes made from the
heart of the palm, which grows in the crown of the tree : expen-
sive and cruel luxury, for the tree, robbed of its heart, dies ; the

In the Lokis-Land,

501

opposite to man, whose heart, the poets tell us, " may break, but
brokenly live on."

The date palm blossoms in March and April, the fruit ripens
in August and September. The vines also blossom in March and
April, the fruit being ready for use in June and July. Women often
preside at the stalls, but of course veiled.

All these itinerant merchants help to fill the streets with a
noisy, restless, animated crowd. The camel-drivers are much in
evidence. You suddenly look up from something that has been
attracting your attention, and close to your face are startled to see a
curious, patient, passive animal quietly making its way as if blind
and deaf to surrounding scenes. There is a sad look in its eyes, as

Grave of Eve : Jeddah.

if it were for ever protesting against Nature for having given it a
hump. Apparently of all creatures it is the least inquisitive. It is
the most useful of Eastern animals, the least exacting. The camel
will go for three days without water ; and a little maize, or desert
grass, or prickly acacia leaves will supply all its needs in the way of food.

Many of those amongst the crowd are strangers or men of business
who have come to Cairo with some definite object in view ; and this
accomplished, they depart again.

Caravanserais, those great travelling institutions of the East, are
for ever arriving from all parts of Africa and Arabia. They have
patiently plodded across the desert, their faithful camels bearing
heavy loads without a protest. Daily before sunset the whole
company has offered up its prayers, adding to the usual formula a

502 III the Lotus-Land,

petition for a safe arrival. Night after night, the tents have been
pitched under the clear Eastern skies, the stars shining down upon
them with a serene benediction. Perhaps they have come from
distant Jeddah, on the borders of the Red Sea, having made before
starting a pilgrimage to Eve's Tomb outside the walls of the flourish-
ing town, where Eve is supposed to have been buried. A domed
chapel is built over the tomb, which can only be seen through a hole
in the pavement. Of Adam's tomb no mention is made ; according
to Eastern tradition our first parents do not repose together.

This Caravanserai, coming from Jeddah, is probably laden with the
riches of the Turkish Empire. The camels bear precious burdens,
and are well guarded by day, carefully watched by night. Pearls
they carry in large numbers, and black coral, coffee of the choicest
kind, balsam and senna leaves for the druggist, horses and donkeys.
To this they probably add carpets, woollen and silk stuffs, spices,
cocoa-nuts and essential oils. Jeddah trades in all these articles, for it
has large dealings with Mozambique, Persia, India, the Malay Islands,
and the interior of Arabia. They import corn, rice, butter, and oil :
possess also a slave market, an institution no longer existing in Cairo.
All these riches make the bazaars and khans of Jeddah some of the
most important and most interesting of the East.

It is in these same bazaars that one expects most particularly to
fall into the atmosphere of the Arabian Nights.

Here one looks for Haroun Alraschid and Abou Hassan, for
Aladdin with his wonderful lamp, and the old Jew pedlar with his
brand-new articles for temptation and exchange. If we do not find
them, we find others exactly like them. The same people, the same
stories and events might still be in existence ; the same delightful
life passed in a magic dream, a rainbow atmosphere, roses more
numerous and beautiful than those of the Vale of Cashmere.

Passing under the great archway leading into the bazaars, we find
ourselves surrounded by a curious crowd.

First comes the proud Bedouin, holding his head erect and walking
as if the world belonged to him — as it does in the sense of roving and
freedom ; for the wide wilderness is his, and north, south, east, or
west, he may pitch his tent as he likes. He is the true Bohemian,
the child of the desert ; the sandy waste is his cradle, the dark skies of
heaven are his covering. Near him we note the sad-looking Copt,
upon whose face there is still the inherited traces of past slave'ry and
persecution ; days when, centuries ago, oppression had to be borne
without the hope of revenge, with no chance of a deliverer. No
Moses arose for them, as for the children of Israel.

Next comes the Jew, with his impenetrable countenance, firmness
of purpose, strength of will ; the expression of the eye betraying a
greed of gain ; his chief object in life the heaping up riches, though
he cannot tell who shall gather them.

Talking to him energetically, stands a Greek, who takes care that

In the LoitcS'Land. 503

he shall not be passed over. He is lithe of limb, bright and active,
with clearly-cut features and eyes that never seem to slumber. The
slow, deliberate movements of the true Oriental are out of touch with
him. If he only had the fervency of the Mohammedan, the large
brain and strength of purpose of the Jew, he might be first and fore-
most in the race. But he is rather of the butterfly species ; a rolling
stone that gathers little moss.

All tribes, including every type of negro, are here ; all colours and
complexions. Having grown familiar with their traits and costumes,
we know them all ; each as distinct and evident as if ticketed with
his place and nation. We have said how wonderfully it adds to the
interest of the scene, and to its comprehension. You feel almost at
home with them ; know almost as much about them as they know of
themselves ; and of their pedigree and ancient history probably a
little more.

The bazaars are undoubtedly interesting as an Oriental institution ;
but they are as certainly disappointing at a first glance. We enter
them full of the influence of the Arabian Nights: pages read and
re-read, until at last everything is seen through their medium.
Imagination has conjured up something very like Fairyland ; we
expect we know not what. Unformed visions of gorgeous magnifi-
cence, of Eastern charm and beauty, are floating through the mind ;
but reality falls very far short of this fanciful picture.

Cairo possesses two chief bazaars and a great number of small
ones. Some of them date as far back as the thirteenth century,
and the Khan-Khalil stands on the site once consecrated to the
tombs of the Caliphs — those Arab sovereigns of Egypt who reigned
before the days of the Mamelukes. What they were in those days
none can tell.

In these, our exalted visions fall to the ground as we observe that
they are little more than long streets or rows of very ordinary stalls —
thoroughfares so narrow that they soon become crowded ; whilst over-
head many a tarpaulin keeps out the sun, and a semi-obscurity often
reigns. The thoroughfares are uneven and badly-paved — like many
of the streets of Cairo. On each side the goods are displayed on
stalls or in booths, each presided over by a dark-eyed Oriental. He
has a great eye to a bargain, and asks an Englishman just twice the
amount he is generally willing to take. If he thinks he has secured a
good customer, he will produce coffee, served in small delicate cups
very much like an egg-shell cut in two, reposing in gold or silver
filigree stands, or stands of fine brass-work. The cups hold very
little, but the coffee is strong and excellent. It is made in true
Oriental fashion, and the grounds are stirred up and taken with
it, a creamy frothy beverage, without milk and often without sugar.
The coffee is less ^finely ground than with us, and forms a less
unpleasant sediment.

Behind the front stall is generally a large square room filled wrth

504

In the Lotus-Land.

goods, where the merchant will open out before you the treasures
of the East, according to his line. Rich brocades, embroideries
cunningly and wonderfully worked, silks and muslins ; every species of
fine damask and gold and silver cloth ; ancient trappings of gold and
crimson sheen, wrought handwork, with long gold and crimson tassels
that must once have graced a royal cortege with wonderful effect.
Many of these articles are not Arabian or Egyptian, but Persian and
Indian. And some are new, and some are centuries old.

Entranxe to Bath for Women : Cairo.

Perhaps the next stall to these rich cloths and brocades is one of
precious stones. Small piles of the red ruby, the blue amethyst,
the white and yellow diamond, the pink topaz, send forth a thousand
flashing rainbow hues as a sunbeam pierces a cunning hole in the
tarpaulin and falls upon the table. But beware how you purchase
the stones, or you may regret your bargain.

Stalls of gold and silver work are frequent. The Egyptian and
Arabian women as much as their Western sisters love ornaments of

In the Loius-Land, 505

every kind and load themselves with them ; from the glittering
spangles that decorate the rabtah^ or front part of the head-dress, to
the anklets worn just above the foot : thus armed cap-a-pied with so-
called charms. Some are more conspicuous than ornamental, such
as the ring the women of certain tribes wear through the nose, luckily
few and far between. One of the bazaars is given up entirely to
this work. In every booth you may see a cross-legged merchant
working at his beautiful art. It is generally sold by weight, and a
small profit will content him for his time and labour.

Another small bazaar is given up to the shoemakers, and the visit
is neither romantic nor interesting. The manufacture of slippers is
an important item in their commerce. They are constantly used
by every one. At every mosque-door are many pairs : and they soon
wear out.

In the most fragrant of the bazaars the spices are sold : those
beautiful and pungent Arabian spices, which scent the air with
delicious and subtle perfume. You have only to close your eyes, to
fancy yourself wandering in groves of cinnamon or under the shady
branches of the scented cedar. In the next bazaar you pause before
a stall where the rich attar of roses brings to your imagination all the
charms of that Bower of roses that stood by Bendemeer's stream,
where, we are told, the nightingale sang all the day long. Here the
nightingale is silent, but the scent of the roses is never absent. The
well-known empty bottles are lying in numbers before you. If you
buy one, the merchant takes it up, weighs it, then fills it with the
luscious perfume, which filters in drop by drop. It is sold strictly
by measure, and is worth almost its weight in gold.

Perhaps the most interesting of all the stalls and shops in or out of
the bazaars, are those filled with the mushrabeeyeh work of the country ;
with Oriental lanterns fitted with rich ruby glass, which casts a brilliant
though subdued reflection when lighted j with daggers, old and
modern, enclosed in magnificent silver sheaths. From the number of
ancient daggers sold year after year, the world at one time must have
been generally occupied in making them. Many have a romantic
history attached to them, as ingeniously put together as anything to
be found in the Arabian Nights — and as apocryphal.

In these shi^ps you find yourself in the true Oriental atmosphere.
In some, such as that kept by Purvis, near the entrance to the
Mooskee, you may wander from room to room, amazed and en-
chanted. Here again is fairyland. All the manufactured wonders of
the East are before you, of the best and most costly description.

Especially we remember a mother-of-pearl coffer, more beautiful
than anything we had ever seen of its kind ; full of subtle rainbow
colours that changed and glowed like the hidden fires of an opal ; of
a refined and exquisite tone that nothing but extreme age could have
given. No price would tempt the owner to part with it at that time.
It was centuries old, and not to be replaced, he declared. Opening

VOL. Liv. 2 H

5o6

In the Lotus-Land.

it, he displayed rich and antique brocades, cunningly wrought in
days gone by — treasures worthy of the shrine. When we first saw it,

Embroiderers : Bazaars of Cairo.

we stood in wondering admiration. This, we said, must have once
belonged to Aladdin's palace, and was made by magicians ; no
ordinar)' human fingers could have wrought it.

In the Lotus-Land. 507

" Nay," returned Purvis, " he could not admit tiiat. For if it had
been made by magic, by magic it might one day disappear. These,"
he continued, spreading out his gold and silver brocades, his ancient
silken embroideries, " you may have ; but the coffer is one of my
treasures. I bought it years ago, and should hardly know my place
without it. The time will come, no doubt, when I shall be willing
to let it go : the time comes for everything," he added, philosophi-
cally. " I will promise you the refusal of it, if you like."

He had a rule that his fellow-merchants would do well to
imitate : not a fraction from the price first asked would he abate. If
others in Cairo did the same, they would find it very much to their
advantage in the end.

We had been spending an immense time one morning in this
enchanted palace, when our dragoman, probably tired of waiting,
appeared on the scene and awoke us from the dream in which we
were lost. Had we taken coffee, we should have said it had worked
some charm upon us ; but we had taken nothing. In an exquisite
filigree incense-burner Purvis had certainly lighted a pastille which
sent forth an aroma deliciously intoxicating, steeping mind and fancy
in a golden atmosphere ; but it was atmosphere and imagination
only. We were in an enchanted palace, and wanted no return to
real life. Aleck, however, thought diiferently. We must be buying
up half the shop at fabulous prices ; it was time he interfered. In
reality we had bought nothing. We had been feasting upon wonders.
The desire for possession had not yet reached us. But for Aleck
to think was to act ; indecision formed no part of his character.
It was never more apparent than when he confided to us his
matrimonial troubles.

" Are you married, Aleck?" we had asked him one morning. His
countenance clouded over.

" Indeed I am, sir," he replied ; '* two wives."

"Isn't that one too many?" we asked. "In England we are
allowed only one wife, and even one is sometimes hard to manage.
I don't know what the consequences of two would be."

" Every country makes its own laws," returned Aleck, pompously,
as if quoting a proverb. " In England you may only have one wife ;
here we may have four. If I had four I should sacrifice myself to
the Nile ; they might fight it out together. I can manage pretty well
everything in the world, but the Prophet himself could not manage
women : that is well known : and so when one got too much for
him, he simply divorced her. They are more stubborn than camels
fiercer than eagles, louder than jackals, uncertain as the wind. When
I go home, if I am pleasant with one, the other would scratch my
eyes out ; it is nothing but noise, quarrelling and contention. On
the other hand, if I scold one, both make common cause against me,
and you would think that I was a perfect demon. But," he added,
a fixed determination coming into his face, " I will stand it no

2 H 2

'' } I

/.',

, I

1 tv'^Y''V !)'

♦

A Sarraf, or Money-changer.

In the Lotus- Land, 5^9

longer. I was thinking about it this morning, and made up my
mind. As soon as I go back home this time, I shall divorce one of
them and send her back to her mother. We can do that, you know,
sir ; it is a capital law, and works well. Most of them are kept in
a good temper by it. It is only the shrews, with tempers stronger
than they are, who throw prudence to the wind."

"What made you marry her?" we asked; wondering what sort of
wooing and winning these people were allowed. Many a bride
groom never sees his wife until after the marriage ceremony is over.
A rude awakening must often be the result — followed by a speedy
divorce. In Aleck's rank, however, they are less restricted, and meet
more freely.

"She was pretty," replied our dragoman ruefully, "and she took
care to keep her temper out of sight. We had often met, and she
seemed very fond of me. So one day when the stars were against
me, I married her. Ever since then she has led me a life."

All this was delivered so rapidly that many a sentence had to be
guessed at or interpreted by the context. But the look of deter-
mination was not to be mistaken. Aleck had made up his mind,
and the wife's fate was doomed. It was his short and satisfactory
way of taming the shrew. Even Achilles had his vulnerable point,
and here was our dragoman's. He could manage the people about
him, gain his end where others failed — he could not rule his
women-folk.

But this is a digression from Purvis's, where the sudden appearance
of our dragoman awoke us from our Eastern glamour.

Aleck looked disturbed. It is true we were his masters for the
time being, but that only meant that he w^as to have the privilege
of doing as he liked, and of giving us suggestions which, like royal
commands, were not open to refusal.

For some time he had amused himself outside Purvis's ; wandering
about the small market, visiting the fruit stalls and helping himself
here and there to a particularly fine specimen with a condescension
which made the act a favour to the stall-holder ; gossiping with his
numerous friends, who were as plentiful as dates in autumn ; be-
stowing a cut of his whip upon a luckless beggar in return for the
blessing which accompanied the demand for charity — a response which
generally checked the blessing half way, and turned it into something
very different.

All this was very well for a time ; but at last, when all the stalls had
been visited, all the people interviewed, and all the news exchanged,
it occurred to Aleck that he was being neglected. This was an
unpardonable sin in his eyes.

We had taken donkeys that morning for a very different purpose
than to keep them waiting outside Purvis's : no less a purpose than
a ride into the desert to hunt for fossils, visit the petrified forest and
watch the shadows lengthening from the distant pyramids. The visit

NiLOMETER : Island of Roda.

In the Lotus-Land. 511

to Purvis's had been an impromptu affair, arising out of a remark
from H. at the moment we were passing the archway leading
through the small market to his place. On the impulse of the
moment we had turned in, leaving Aleck, the donkeys, and the
donkey-boys to amuse themselves outside. Not that Aleck would
have scrupled to follow us, making the round of everything, and
listening to all that was said ; taking mental observations to crop up
afterwards in the form of advice. He had remained outside this
morning of his own free will, and for his own special pleasure. So
when it pleased him, he did not hesitate to enter with his protest.

" Please, sir," said he, " the donkeys outside are eating their heads
off. We have lost our morning. It is too late now to go to the
desert."

And then he threw a reproachful look upon his surroundings, as if
wondering whether we had bought up the whole collection, or had
left a few bagatelles for others who should come after.

" Are the donkeys at the door, Aleck ? "

" Yes, sir. Great day for the donkey boys. They say all pay and
no work. Donkeys gone to sleep. Idle boys in mischief."

" What is to be done now ? " we inquired, consulting a large clock
just in front of the wonderful old mother-of-pearl coffer. Time had
flown on wings in this enchanted palace. Purvis himself seemed to
delight in taking us round — apparently indifferent whether purchases
were made or not ; satisfied if only his handicraft was admired — for
all the exquisite mushrabeeyeh work, the magnificent cabinets and
sideboards, chairs, tables, wonderful screens, and a hundred other
objects, were made upon the premises, under his very eye. He had
clever designers always about him, the most skilled workmen of Egypt.

" I don't know, sir," replied Aleck. " I think the best thing will
be to give the donkeys a little exercise, and the boys too ; a good
sharp trot down to Roda Island and the Nilometer, right through
Old Cairo. We could do it well, and be back by lunch-time."

So we thanked Mr. Purvis for his attention, promising a speedy
return when there were no donkeys to be kept waiting, and no tyrant
dragoman to be obeyed ; and departed. We mounted our animals
and away we went, Aleck triumphantly leading the van. You might
have thought the whole of Cairo belonged to him.

Every one in Cairo mounts donkeys, and therefore no one looks
conspicuous. On the first occasion, one feels uncomfortable and out
of place. In front of you is, perhaps, a huge specimen of humanity,
six foot four, plodding along on his patient animal, his feet almost
touching the ground, his head half-way to the clouds. Beside him
rides his ministering angel, more than making up in breadth what is
wanting in height. Her flopping hat keeps rhythm to the donkey's
step, beating time like a metronome. They look a ridiculous couple,
and you wonder if you look equally absurd. But you have no
flopping lady to escort, looking like an old-fashioned man-of-war

Ill the Lotus-Land. 513

under full canvas ; and Nature has not gifted you with sixty
inches of waist measurement, or seventy-six of height. The un-
comfortable feeling wears off; you soon fuid yourself at home on
donkey-back ; and when you grow used to the action, it is not
unpleasant.

We went trotting down the streets of Cairo, Aleck scattering
people right and left, indifferent to human life. Passing out of
the town. Old Cairo lay in front of us : we were soon within its
ancient, rather woe-begone, though interesting thoroughfares. On
reaching the ancient Mosque of Amrou, our dragoman, having
had enough of interiors for one day, pretended that it was closed.
The old port was full of interest and animation, with its picturesque
boats and busy crowd. Here the Nile opens up majestically, and
you may trace its course for a great distance. Opposite we noted
Gizeh with its Pyramids and small palm-woods of great beauty.
Ferries, darting to and fro, conveyed passengers and animals from
bank to bank ; donkeys and camels in friendly contact with each
other ; the one small and light of foot and easy to manage ; t!ie other
heavy, clumsy, evidently ill at ease upon the water, sacred Nile though
that water was.

A ferry-boat quickly took us across to the island of Roda, which
occupies the centre of the river in front of Old Cairo : an island still
green and flourishing, though its best days are over. Here palm-
trees yet grow and flowers are gorgeous and abundant. It was once
famous for its beautiful gardens, but these have for the most part
fallen into neglect. It now owes much to its natural fertility.

Roda is chiefly esteemed because it contains the Nilometer, which
has stood there since the beginning of the ninth century. A winding
and intricate sort of maze, conducted us after a time to a closed
gate, at which Aleck knocked — for a time in vain. At last a woman
appeared, and with slow and deliberate manner opened to us. Aleck
of course remonstrated, and the woman replied that not she but the
gardener was doorkeeper. The latter, however, had gone off to be
married — or divorced ; she couldn't remember which, and one was as
bad as the other ; for if the men got divorced is was only to marry
other wives. She herself was still an unappropriated blessing, and
her mind had probably revolted against the sex that would none of her
charms. Her face was uncovered — perhaps the island made its own
laws and sensibly gave its women their freedom — and certainly her
beauty led one to suppose that she would remain unappropriated to
the end.

The garden was charming and productive. Lovely fruit trees were
evidently much more in favour with the absent gardener than the lady
who was his locu?n teftens. Exquisite flowers enlivened the beds and
sent forth a delicious perfume. Many a palm-tree threw its shadow
across the white dazzling paths. Tradition says that here Moses
was found by Pharaoh's daughter — it is probably only tradition —

514 I'^T^ i^^ Lotus-Land.

and on the opposite bank of the river there is a tree bearing Moses'
name.

Amidst all this wealth of Nature, stood the Nilometer. Here for
more than a thousand years the rising of the Nile has been anxiously
watched. Upon this depended the prosperity of the country : so
much so that until it reached a certain height the people were
free of taxes, as already stated. The measuring was in the hands of
the Sheykhs, who for long years gave out false reports.

A square chamber contains the measuring-rod, and the Nile water
reaches it by means of underground canals. Niches and Gothic
arches resting upon columns ornament the walls. A wide stone stair-
case leads to the water, where men and women may fill their pitchers
and flirt, gossip, or moralize, according to their mood. Numerous
inscriptions are visible.

In the centre of the water rises the column or measuring rod
that has been in use for centuries. It is octagonal, and once bore
many inscriptions which have been worn or washed away. The
measurement was kept under the control of the Sheykhs, and is; so
to this day ; but these in their turn are now surveyed by the police.
Then, as now, the tillers of the soil were not allowed to approach it.
When the waters reach a certain mark, the good news is proclaimed ;
the banks are cut ; the waters spread over the country. An image in
the form of a woman, made of mud, gaudily decorated, is then with
much ceremony thrown into the Nile as a propitiatory offering. In
days gone by a living woman and not an image was sacrificed, but
happily that is all over.

We gazed with strange interest upon this relic of the past, which
means so much for the Egyptians. Year by year, century after
century, this measurement has been watched with an anxiety which
meant life or death, famine or abundance, to multitudes, telling inch
by inch the rising or falling of the waters from their invisible source.
The effect of the inundation begins to be felt about the month of
June ; this generally continues until September, when the waters
commence to subside. The mud deposited dries up in January, and
upon this depends the fertility of Egypt.

For the moment our surroundings were beautiful and romantic.
With all its flowers and fruit trees, there was a certain air of wildness
about the garden of the Nilometer. At a little distance, on rising
ground, was the small palace to which the garden belonged. At our
feet flowed the classic and venerable stream. A barge filled with
hay was passing upwards, one of those Nile boats that with sail set
are so full of beauty and charm, and outlined against the clear sky
form so complete a picture. Not far off, a gorgeous and royal
Dahabeeyah was moored near the palace of Ibrahim Pacha.

Before us, along the banks of the canal, stretched the houses of
Old Cairo — grey, flat-roofed tenements, that had long been strangers
to wealth and prosperity. We caught a glimpse of a street runnmg

In the Lotus-Land. 515

at right angles with the river. Many a refuse heap lay about, from
which even the lynx-eyed old chiffoniers of Paris would have found
it difficult to extract the smallest treasure. A woman from the top
of a house was hauling up, by means of a basket and a long rope, a
load of vegetables that she had just bought from one of the street
merchants, whose name — as we have seen — is legion. Down the grey
banks of the Nile women were passing with their water-pitchers ;
women of free and graceful bearing in spite of their poverty and
humble birth. As they walked away with their artistically-shaped
jars upon their head, they might have been descendants of some
Eastern queen. A ferry-boat shot across the stream, making directly
for the foot of our water temple. It was the truant gardener, and
a veiled lady accompanied him. " Evidently marriage and not
divorce was the reason of his absence," said H., when Aleck had duly
informed us of the illustrious approach. " I thought a wedding was
accompanied by all sorts of ceremonies and festivities."

" Not always, sir," returned our dragoman. " It depends on the
rank of the people. With some, too, like the gardener here, it is an
every day affair. He divorces a wife about once a year, and marries
another. I know him well."

The boat stopped within a few yards of us, and the bridegroom
helped the bride to disembark as if he had been another Antony, she
another Cleopatra. Of her face we saw little, and her form was not
sylph-like, but this might be due to a superabundance of clothing.
They marched up the pathway together, the gardener stopping a
moment to exchange greetings with Aleck. Then he went on and
both disappeared within the house.

We took the boat back to the shore, sorry to leave the pleasant
little island. But time and tide wait for no man. The donkeys had
had another rest ; a long trot was before us.

Once more we mounted, and Aleck led the van. Once more his
voice made itself heard, his whip flourished right and left. Out of
Old Cairo into the long dusty road, where we caught glimpses of
lovely gardens, and barren stretches of land, and the windings of the
river ; modern Cairo, with its tombs and temples, rising in front of
us like an oasis out of a desert. And ever above and before us, in
the far distance, was the everlasting rock, crowned with its ancient
citadel ; whilst the Mosque of Mohammed Ali, with its slender minarets
reaching towards the heavens, looked like a vision of Paradise, and
might well be the end and aim of many an earthly pilgrimage.

5i6

THE GHOST OF ST ELSPETH.
By George Fosbery.
I.

AjMOS GUINGELL was the ne'er-do-weel of the Cornish village of
St. Elspeth.

While the fishermen went out in the boats to -earn their living,
Amos would sit idly on the cliff and flick pebbles into the heaving
water below. When the village folk flocked to the town on market-
day, Amos was the only one who omitted to combine business with
pleasure, and who invariably returned in a condition the reverse of
sober. When his neighbours had gone to bed, and had fallen into
their first sweet sleep, Amos would reel down the cobble-paved street
with clattering footsteps, and with a coarse song upon his tongue.
On Sunday, when all other respectable people had gone up the hill to
the church on the cliff, Amos w^as generally gazing dreamily at the
Red Rock Lighthouse out at sea, or prowling around in search of
something to appropriate, or of an opportunity for dam.aging his
neighbours' property. Amos never honestly earned anything ; and
consequently he was never in possession of any spare cash ; except
when, by means of persuasion and threats artfully intermingled, he
prevailed upon his grandmother to give him a shilling or two.

Granny Guingell was quite a public functionary at St. Elspeth. Not
only did she clean out the church and act as pew-opener, but when-
ever an increase of the population was expected. Granny Guingell's
services were engaged. Woe betide every interested person if they
were not ! She had been present in her professional character and
as presiding genius at the arrival of every human novelty in that
community for well-nigh fifty years. Thus she came to be considered,
or at any rate she came to consider herself, indispensable at ever}'
such ceremony ; moreover, she let people know it.

At this very time she was anxiously looking forward to a call on
business of this same profitable nature. Peter Robbins, the grocer,
danced to and fro from his wife behind the shop to Granny Guingell
behind her knitting, twenty times a day to announce, so far, that he
had nothing to announce.

Thus Granny Guingell had managed to put by a tidy sum against
the evil day, if it should ever overtake her. And this same tidy sum
her grandson's idleness and extravagance tended ever to diminish.

He was now in search of her and of her money, being, for some
reason or other, more than usually pressed for lack of that com-
modity.

The Ghost of St. ElspetL 517

" Wherever be her got to ? drat her ! Her has got a proper lot o'
cash put away somewheres or another. I've a-looked up the chimley,
I've a-looked in the bed, I've a-looked in the old chiney tea-pot, I've
a-dived down into the cellar, and clomb up into the roof; I've looked
up and down everywhere ; and for certain sure the money bain't in
the house. Wherever can it be ? "

While indulging in these edifying reflections, he slouched round
a corner and came suddenly upon the person of whom he was in
search.

A small knot of gossips stood and listened to Granny Guingell,
who was entertaining them by holding forth upon her pet subject.

" Oh, it's no laughing matter, I tell 'ee ! I wouldn't go nigh that
there church after dark — not if you'd give me five hund'r'd pounds ! "

" Yes, sure enough ! I've heard tell dreadful tales about the
ghosteses as was seen there in my poor father's time."

" 'Tis a wisht old place ! " said another.

" What is this 'ere ghostie like ? " inquired some one.

" Like ! " exclaimed Granny. " Did ye never hear tell ? W^hy !
Now — first thing you see, is St. Elspeth a-kneeling on the old tomb
on the chancel, and after that "

" Go it. Granny ! " interrupted Amos, who was taking an unusual
interest in the old lady's utterances.

" And after that, there be a ter-r-ible rumbling among the bones —
and chains a-rattling — and sich screams — aw, my dear ! "

Granny's audience shuddered at her description of the terrors of
the church after dark. But — such is the inquisitiveness of human
nature — not one of the little crowd was content until a complete
description had been given of the very worst horrors for which
Granny could vouch.

While they were thus engaged in shattering one another's nervous
systems, the street door of the house before which they were standing
opened, and Dr. Perran, the local practitioner, stepped out.

Granny appealed to the doctor for confirmation of the report that
the church was haunted.

" I have often heard the tradition," replied the doctor. " I do not,
however, believe in the truth of it, and I have never met with any one
who claimed that he had seen the ghost with his own eyes."

Whereat Granny Guingell grew vastly indignant, and asserted that
on several occasions, when her duty of cleaning out the church had
detained her after sunset, she had seen the apparition of the saint,
and had been terrified by all the concomitant circumstances of
groans, bones, chains, and screams, which she believed to issue from
the graves and vaults beneath the building.

Amos unexpectedly confirmed all that she had said, and added a
good many other particulars on his own account. The slabs forming
the floor of the church would sometimes stand on end — so he said —
and clattering skeletons would rise and pervade the church in a

5i8 The Ghost of St. Elspeth.

ghostly dance. He had seen them through the keyhole of the door ;
and would not go near the place again after dusk for all the riches in
England.

A burst of incredulous laughter, started by the doctor, followed the
preposterous testimony of Amos. The group of gossips separated,
and left Amos standing alone on the spot.

" Ghosts be hanged ! " he muttered. " Granny is a deep 'un. I
'spect I knows now where she hides her money."

Dr. Perran paid a visit to a patient living at a distance of some
miles from the village. Riding homewards, while darkness was
setting in, he remembered the conversation which he had heard that
afternoon on the subject of ghosts.

Every man on this earth has within him a courage which partakes
of the nature of bravado. He is a strange mortal who does not at
one time or another wilfully rush into a danger which he professes to
despise, but through which, at the same time, he will feel proud to
have passed. Dr. Perran did not believe in ghosts in general, still
less in the ghost of St. Elspeth in particular. He resolved, however,
to go out of his road, and to take the church on his way home ; not
because he hoped or expected to meet with any supernatural
experiences, but because he felt, in a modest sort of way, that there
would be a certain satisfaction in boasting that he had been there
after dark and had seen nothing.

11.

Granny Guingell's indispensable services seemed likely to be required
sooner than had been expected.

Towards the hour of sunset, Peter Robbins ran hurriedly and
excitedly up the street and knocked at the old wife's door. There
came no reply to the summons. It was evident that Granny had
gone out. The little grocer retreated a step or two from the door and
surveyed the windows of the house, as if he expected them to help
him.

At this moment his eye discerned a fluttering slip of paper pinned
to the door-post. Granny had a business-like side to her character,
and the slip of paper had been specially placed where it was, to meet
the contingency of her presence being required, a possibility which
was now fulfilled. Peter Robbins read the intimation which the old
lady had providently affixed there. It was expressed in the signifi-
cant and masterly idiom, " Gone up ! "

For an instant Peter's bewildered imagination wrestled with the
thought of the old lady's unexpected and glorious translation, in
chariots of fire, to regions celestial. But on further reflection he con-
cluded that the good dame merely wished to convey the announce-
ment that she might be found, up the hill, at the church.

The Ghost of St. Elspcth. 519

There was no time to be lost ! Dr. Perran was known to be at
a distance. Granny must be fetched immediately.

But if there was one thing in the world, and indeed there were
many to which Peter Robbins' courage was unequal, it was tlie
danger of traversing a churchyard after dark. He remembered, too,
that Granny Guingell had borne witness to the fact of the church
being haunted. Nothing on earth would induce him to enter the
building alone.

Peter gathered quickly about him a little troup of friends, consist-
ing chiefly of the gossips who had listened open-mouthed, that
morning, to the grim particulars about the ghost, given by the old
dame and her grandson Amos.

The little party ascended the hill by a winding path, and, having
arrived at the summit, turned their faces to the church which stood
looming before them in the darkness.

But we must hark back. At or about the time, when Peter
Robbins knocked at Granny Guingell's door, Dr. Perran, returning
to St. Elspeth rather earlier than he expected, turned his horse's
head up the sloping turf of the hill whereon stood the church. As
he came nearer he perceived, to his surprise, that there shone a
light of some kind in the sacred building.

He picked his way among the graves, avoiding the slabs and stones
for fear his approach should be discovered. Having dismounted, and
hung his horse's bridle to a nail on the wall, he stole up to St.
Elspeth's window, a gothic light filled with ancient glass, having a
border or margin of transparent panes. The design in stained glass,
represented the figure of the Saint herself. The window was six or
seven feet high, and stood only three feet from the ground.

Putting his eyes close to a part of the transparent margin of the
window. Dr. Perran tried to see what was taking place in the
chancel.

He perceived the figure of a man who carried a lantern. The
individual, whose face he was unable to espy, advanced to an ancient
tomb let into the wall on the opposite side of the chancel. There he
stopped. Then, after a rapid glance about him to see if he was alone,
the man laid down his lantern and began to examine the tomb. He
was evidently dissatisfied about something, and was heard to utter an
oath. Then, taking a small iron bar from his pocket, he began
deliberately to break open the lid of the tomb.

At this moment the mist that had been hanging over the sea
drifted away, and through the clear atmosphere shone a brilliant shaft
of light from the Red Rock Lighthouse. The powerful rays struck
through the stained glass window at which Dr. Perran was standing,
and flashed in the eyes of his horse close by.

The steed snorted, shook his bit, reared, and broke his rein. The
doctor clutched at one of the streaming bands, and barely arrested
the career of the frightened beast, as it snorted again wildly, and

520

The Ghost of St. Elspeth.

plunged about on the slabs and stones in the graveyard. Dr.
Perran was dragged unwillingly past the porch at the further end of
the church.

At the same time an elderly female figure rushed in terror from the
porch. She was apparently frightened at the strange noises made by
the horse and by its struggling master. She screamed as she ran
down the path, and plunged into the midst of a terrified party of
villagers, who little recognised in her rapidly retreating figure and
terror-stricken accents, the form and voice of Granny Guingell.
Horrified in turn, and adding their cries to the din, the scared
villagers fled in any and every direction.

Dr. Perran's horse, having broken away from him, that gentleman
returned to the church in order to find out, if possible, what had
given rise to all this commotion. Being far too matter-of-fact to
attribute any of these events to supernatural causes, he felt it his duty
to go back and curtail the sacrilege in the church of which he had
been an unexpected witness.

He entered the porch and tried the door, which opened easily.
Indeed, the key was on the outside of the lock ; but, for some reason
or other, it had become firmly fixed, and would not turn in its place.

Pushing open the church door, Dr. Perran entered.

The lantern still stood upon the floor before the tomb. Although
it shed little light around the chancel and the body of the church, the
Doctor could discern one object which arrested his attention.

On the pavement within the altar-rails, and close to the lantern
itself, lay the prostrate figure of a man.

On the wall close by, and described on the flat surface above the
ancient tomb, was a perfect representation of St. Elspeth's \vindow,
cast there by the brilliant beams from the Red Rock Lighthouse.

Doctor Perran went up the church, and, by the aid of the lantern,
recognised in the seemingly lifeless face of the man the features of —
Amos Guingell !

The Doctor soon found that Amos was more frightened than hurt.
Reassured by the voice of a friend in need, the youth rose and
seized the Doctor's arm. He asked whether the latter had seen and
heard the ghosts and their goings on.

Doctor Perran asked what Amos referred to, but the lad appeared
to be too frightened to explain. The Doctor, therefore, took up the
lantern and led him away.

On the road back to the village Amos gave an account of himself.

He had, as it appeared, got himself into debt, and was unable to
procure money wherewith to get himself out again. He had asked
Granny Guingell again and again for cash, but she always refused
him. Knowing that she must be possessed of a considerable sum of
money, he had watched her movements for some time with great
persistency in the hope of discovering the hiding-place of her pile. It
was not till this same day that he learnt what he wanted.

Tlw Ghost of St. Elspeth. 521

Having followed her up to the church, when she went to clean it
out, he observed her in the act of removing a stone or slab from the
ancient tomb in the chancel. From the space beneath the stone she
took a large bag of coin, to which she added a further sum, and
which she afterwards replaced, covering it with the stone in such an
ingenious way that Amos tried in vain to find out the secret of
displacing it.

It may here be mentioned that when Granny had replaced her
stone, she intended to leave the church. She found, however, that
the key of the door had stuck fast (owing, as she little thought, to a
judicious application of mud and wadding by Amos). Being un-
willing to leave the door of the holy edifice open. Granny had sat
down on the bench within the porch to contemplate the situation and
to devise means of making the lock act again. Very soon the worthy
dame, fatigued after her labours, fell into a pleasant doze, from which
she was rudely awakened — firstly, by the clinking of the bar used by
Amos ; and, secondly, by the clatter made by the Doctor's steed.
Thinking herself pursued by the agents of the Evil One, she had left
the place with less dignity than speed, and had consequently frightened
the search-party of villagers into fits.

To return to Amos. He had scarcely struck his first blow with the
iron bar, he said, when the church seemed to become alive with lights.
Thinking that his eyes had played him a trick, he continued his
battering operation, when he heard a series of sounds calculated to
make the stoutest heart quail — the rattling of bones, the clanking of
chains, snorts, groans, footsteps, and the clang of hoofs. Of course
Dr. Perran easily accounted for everything in his own mind by a
recollection of the movements of his champing and terrified horse
— all of which weird noises, followed by ear-splitting and heart-rending
shrieks and yells, had reduced Amos's nerves to a state bordering on
collapse. He was standing, so he said, in the middle of the chancel
in an agony of terror — not knowing whether to remain or run away,
whether to pray or curse — his hair on end, his tongue cleaving to the
roof of his mouth, and his knees knocking together like ninepins, when
a crowning horror met his gaze. Suddenly a flash as of lightning half-
blinded him. Turning his eyes away from the direction whence it had
come, he witnessed, to his eternal terror, an apparition of the good
saint Elspeth herself, dressed exactly in the fashion with which he had
been familiar since his childhood — namely, that depicted in the
stained-glass window. There could be no doubt about it whatsoever.
He had seen a ghost, and he never wished to see another. No
wonder he had dropped down all of a heap where he stood !

Dr. Perrin told Amos what had taken place outside the church, how
the horse had broken loose ; how he (the doctor) had called to the
beast and tried to soothe it with the jargon usual on such occasions —
such as, " Whoa, pretty ! Coop ! Coop ! Coop ! " and so on — (all of
which added to Amos' bewilderment at the time). He described

VOL. Liv. 2 I

522 The Ghost of St. Elspeth.

how a female figure (possibly that of Granny Guingell) had emerged
unexpectedly from the porch, and how the old lady had spread the
contagion of fear to a number of people frotn the village who were at
that moment entering the churchyard. He explained how the various
noises had been mistaken by Amos for supernatural sounds, and
attributed the mistake the lad had made to the suggestions of an evil
conscience.

Amos admitted the justice of all that the doctor said, but asked in
trembling tones —

" But, the ghost ? Didn't I see it with my own eyes ? "

" What you mistook for a ghost, Amos, was the picture cast on the
wall by the rays of the Red Rock lighthouse, as they shone brightly
through the saint's window, and reproduced there the stained-glass
representation of St. Elspeth."

Amos listened in silence, but remained incredulous. Nothing
would ever convince him that he had not seen a ghost ; and as
nothing ever persuaded him again to enter the church alone, Granny's
hoard was left, like the bones of the surrounding dead, to rest in
peace.

A BROTHER OF PITY.

At his Monastery door,

When the close of day was ccms.
With his book of holy lore,

Musing sat the good Jerome-
Looking out with tranquil eyes
At the glorious Eastern skies.

To him came a murmur low

From the peaceful cloistered walk.

Where the Monks passed to and fro,
And across their cheerful talk

Acolytes' young voices clear

Fell upon his dreaming ear.

Out before him stretched the sands,
Far as ever eye could see.

Mile on mile of barren lands
Broken not by shrub or tree ;

Save where, at the well hard by.

Rose a palm tree towering high.

A Brother of Pity. 523

Quoth the Prior, " Life is good

Even in this desert air,
All Thy works when understood

Are most beautiful and fair ;
True indeed was David's word,
All the earth is Thine, O Lord ! "

Suddenly a cry arose,

From the Monks, a cry of dread,
" See yon form that moves and grows,

Creeping on with stealthy tread —
Surely 'tis some evil beast
Seeking for its evening feast ! "

" Outlined 'gainst the darkening sky,

'Tis some fearsome beast of prey !
And how fast it draweth nigh —

Come, good Prior, come away —
Look, its fangs are red with gore !
Quick, and let us bar the door ! "

" 'Tis a Lion from the plain,"

Quoth the Prior in accents calm,
" And the creature seems in pain ;

Nay, good brothers, fear no harm —
Hath not said the voice Divine,
All the forest beasts are Mine ? "

Vainly did the Monks implore,

For the Prior would not heed :
" Wherefore should we close our door

To a living thing in need ?
It perhaps has hither strayed,
Dumbly seeking for our aid."

With his hungry eyes aflame.

And his great mouth open wide.
Limping on, the Lion came,

Halted at the Prior's side,
And with roar subdued and faint
Held his paw up to the Saint.

Marvelhng stood the little band,

Such a wondrous sight to see.
As the Monk with practised hand

Took the great paw tenderly.
And with one sharp wrench had drawn;
From the wound a cruel thorn.

Then he called for water there.
Washed away the dust and blood,

Bound it up with skilful care —
And as if he understood.

All the while, with patient grace.

Gazed the Lion in his face.

212

524 A Brother of Pity.

Quoth the Prior, " The wound will heal,

Now, good Lion, go thy way :
He shall share our evening meal,

And no doubt, at break of day.
Of our strange guest we shall find
Only footprints left behind."

But next morning, at the door.

Still the forest king they found.
Holding up his wounded paw.

As he crouched upon the ground :
Waiting thus with trustful eyes
For the good Monk's surgeries.

So the days and weeks wore on.
And the hurt healed sure and slow,

Till all trace of it was gone —
But the Lion would not go !

Yet no lamb in pastures green

Gentler than the beast was seen !

Thus it happened in the end,

That the creature fierce and rude,

Came to be the trusted friend
Of the little brotherhood :

And until the day he died

Never left the Prior's side.

Of his love spake good Jerome —

"In the heavenly citadel.
Where we make our lasting home,

Brother Lion with us shall dwell :
In that land of peace and joy
Where they hurt not nor destroy."

Centuries passed, St. Jerome's name
Rose a star in earth's dark night,

And the lustre of his fame

Filled the Church of Christ with light

Faith's defender, steward wise

Of God's deepest mysteries.

And across the ages dim

Comes this legend of the Saint,
Thus Bellini pictured him.

In a chamber old and quaint,
Reading in his still retreat,
With his Lion at his feet.

Lies no lesson hidden here

In this love so deep and wide.
Holding every creature dear

For the sake of Him who died ?
He who marks the sparrow's fall
Hath a value set for all.

Christian Burke.

D-5

OLD UNCLE ABE.

By Ada M. Trotter.

/^LD Uncle Abe had the reputation of being the wealthiest man in
^-^ the State of Vermont.

He had no wife, no child, no relative save a distant cousin, who
had deeply offended him by choosing to marry an artist in spite
of all his warnings against such a disastrous course. Guy Hallet,
however, made a good husband, for he was a worthy young man, but
Uncle Abe was faithful to his prejudices, and ignored the daring
couple.

" What would become of Uncle Abe's money when Providence saw
fit to remove him to a higher sphere ? "

This question disturbed the serenity of the townsfolk, who readily
adopted the title of '' Uncle " in addressing the object of so much
solicitude ', indeed, to many it came quite natural to say ^^ dear Uncle
Abe."

Now this story begins on a certain winter day, which for the twenty
preceding years had been kept by all as Uncle Abe's birthday, for it
came at a slack season and gave everyone an opportunity to do him
honour.

His housekeeper, Mrs. Mandy, provided a sumptuous repast for the
guests. She was especially famous for her chicken salad, so that
report said the very chickens fled at her approach, and " the help "
declared herself fairly " tuckered out " with beating eggs for the feast.

On the morning in question one team after another was " hitched
up," and the owners, in Sunday array, drove merrily over the snow to
the Spring Farm.

" Well, I declare if there isn't Mira Glen with that good-for-nought
husband of hers, coming as gay as you please behind us ! " said Aunt
Sue, grimly, from the recesses of her buffalo rugs. " Now, Susan Jane,
I do hope you've got something that will please your uncle this year.
Those 'sthetic things he can't abide. He threw the sunflowers down
behind the sofa, and says he : ' Got plenty in my garden, Susan Jane,
without you bringing them into the house.' He don't take things
pleasant when he don't like 'em, don't Uncle Abe ! "

" Well, I'm sure," said Jane, " if he don't like 'em, he needn't to ;
and it's the last thing I'm going to make for him, and no one needn'
turn so grumpy at a pair of wool sHppers such as these."

She held up a pair of sulphur-green slippers. Aunt Sue shook her
head in a dissatisfied manner.

" He won't like anything 'sthetic — you can't expect it of him. He's
passed his life 'mongst cows and barns, an' merchants an' money-

526 Old Uncle Abe.

grubbin'. I do wish you had more sense, Susan Jane. You're your
mother over again — jest as shiftless ! "

" As for sense," remarked Susan Jane, briefly, " I'd Uke to know
the sense of our going to Uncle Abe's to-day. If you know where it
lies, I wish you'd tell me, Aunt Sue ? "

" You're always such a one for reasons ! " snapped Aunt Sue. " We
always kave been for this twelve year and more ; 'tisn't likely we're
going to give out when there's so many others going."

" More than usual, Susan ! " said Uncle Peter, morosely. " I'm
downright 'sprised to see Almira. Everyone knows as Uncle Abe
told her she'd no business to marry that painting fellow."

" Well, he do keep her somehow, and she's a happy woman," said
Susan Jane.

" Slaving all the time for her children, and not a new gown to her
back since she was married ! " snapped Aunt Sue.

Merrily rang the sleigh-bells ; truly it did seem as though everyone
in the village was to be present to-day. What did it mean ?

The hall and parlours were crowded, but Aunt Sue was not above
getting her rights by pushing for them, and soon presented herself and
niece at the footstool of Uncle Abe. This is of course symbolical,
for Uncle Abe had never owned a footstool, and would have scorned
its use before company even had he possessed one. His favourite
chair, with a high straight back, was set by the hearth, and he was
seated, his cheeks distended by a very unamiable grin as he watched
the good folk pushing their way to pay him honour. He often turned
from the scene to the wood-fire, playing with the logs as if he loved
to watch the sparks fly out into the room, keeping people waiting for
a word and look until they were scorched by the fierce fire.

" Uncle Abe, many happy returns of the day," said a cheerful voice
at his elbow. " We're come, Almira and I ; we are quite willing to
forgive and forget, since you went to the trouble of asking us to come
especially."

Uncle Abe turned and gave a cynical look at the bold speaker, who
presented a frank, manly appearance as he pushed forward his blushing
little wife.

" Glad enough to make up to the old man ! " sneered one, audibly.
Uncle Abe glanced round, but he did not speak, nor did he answer
the cordial greeting of the young man except by suddenly putting out
his hand as if he was glad to see him — a piece of favour jealously
noted by the lookers-on.

Presently a lawyer from town, who was watching everything with
keen eyes and inscrutable countenance, whispered something to Uncle
Abe, and with a nod of assent the old man rose to his feet.

Time had dealt kindly with him and his seventy-two years ; he was
vigorous, full of life. Many a one looking at him believed the doctor's
oft-repeated prophecy — " that Uncle Abe would outlive most of the
people who came to pay him court." He had a fine head and face,

Old Uncle Abe. 527

and his expression was not unkindly ; many people would have rated
him as a very simple man, liable to be deceived by his neighbours ;
a good physiognomist, however, would have seen this contradicted by
the keen expression of the large blue eyes. Uncle Abe did not owe
his fortune to chance ; a shrewder man than he could not be found
in Vermont.

" Dear Uncle Abe ; how well he looks ! " said Aunt Sue, audibly.

The old man's eye rested on her, twinkling with amusement.

" My friends — for I suppose I may call you so ? " he began.

" I should hope so," echoed from every side.

" Well, you are all so kind in coming to see a lonely old man, that
I thought I'd send for my lawyer to come and help me make a speech
to-day."

" He's going to make his will," was the next whisper in circulation,
and rapid interchange of ideas on that point made a buzz in the
room, only silenced by an imperative call from the lawyer.

" I daresay, now, some of you have wondered what under the sun I
mean to do with my money when I'm gone ? "

" Oh, no ! 'twasn't any of our business," from all.

" Well, it wasn't, and it isn't now ; but circumstances have altered
with me, and so I mean to explain matters. I've always had an
idea, that a man has a perfect right to dispose of his property as he
likes."

" Of course, of course ! " Perfect unanimity of opinion testified by
chorus.

" Well, I'm glad you agree with me. I suppose you'd like to know
what I was worth ten years ago. Mr. Stubbs here will tell you."

All eyes were turned on the lawyer, who consulted some notes in
his hand, and replied calmly —

" Just over one million, sir."

" Well, I've been more than half a century putting it up," said
Uncle Abe ; " and I've got no wife or child to leave it to — you all
know that."

A chorus of impatient voices replied to this. Uncle Abe was ver
long in coming to the point !

" Well, now, I took to thinking a deal on the subject. When I
was a poor boy in New York, I fell sick and was carried to the
hospital. There I lay for many a week, tended well, and discharged
cured, and with a book of good advice given me into the bargain.
The first thousand dollars I made that I could spare, I sent to that
institution, and I considered that if I divided up my money and left
it to half-a-dozen such institutions, I should not be far out of the way.
I made a calculation on the foundation that I should only live to be
threescore years and ten, and I kept such a sum as I thought would
keep me in life as long as that."

Dead silence ! Had there been a chorus it would have been of
curses on the old man for outwitting them.

528 Old Uncle Abe.

Uncle Abe sat down ; and the lawyer began to speak.

" Uncle Abe wishes me to tell you the rest of the story,*' said he.
" I regret to say that the money set aside as a provision for his old
age, is lost by a bank failure. He is now too old to enter into active
business again, and will have to be indebted to you, his friends, who
love him so wtII, for a home for the rest of his days. His tastes, as
you know, are simple, and he will endeavour to repay your kindness
by making himself a very agreeable inmate."

The silence of stupefaction which followed this speech was suddenly
broken by loud-spoken comments. The lawyer was seized upon as
he tried to leave the room, and fruitless efforts were made to extract
more details from him ; but he slipped out of the detaining hands
before the angry folks could formulate their queries.

Uncle Abe saw everything from his seat by the blazing fire.

" The idea of expecting us to support him ! " he heard from one to
whom an hour ago he had been " Dear Uncle Abe."

" He never did anything for us," from another.

" I can't have an old man pottering round my house, anyhow," said
another voice.

" Charity begins at home. I've got five children to support."

" There's plenty of room in your house, Aunt Sue — do take him
in, and I'll take all the trouble of him," said a pleading voice.

Uncle Abe darted a quick glance at Susan Jane ; he listened
intently for the answer.

" You never had a grain of sense in your life, Susan Jane ! Don't
you know as like as not he'll live for twenty years or more ? "

" I hope he'll live forty," said Susan Jane. " I'll work for him as
long as I have two hands. Do let him come. Aunt Sue."

" Mind your own business ! " said Aunt Sue ; " you don't know
nothing of the world. It is easy giving away other folks' victuals ; wait
till you've got some of your own."

There was a sob from Susan Jane. Uncle Abe beckoned her to
him ; she bent down and kissed him.

" I made some slippers for your birthday," she said. '' They're
not very pretty, but they're warm. You'll wear them, won't you,
Uncle Abe ? "

" Ay, I'll wear them," he said, an odd smile distorting his face as
he opened the parcel. " No, they're not pretty, Susan Jane ; they're
too green or too yellow^, which is it ? Well, I'll wear them. What
are you crying for, child ? "

" I was wishing I knew enough to teach school and earn some
money," said she. " I guess I could earn enough to keep you. Uncle
Abe. Anyhow, I've got ten dollars, that's something. Could you live
long on ten dollars, Uncle Abe ? "

Uncle Abe was silent for a while ; then, not being one who took
presents gracefully, said, " he guessed he'd have to."

" Uncle Abe," said Almira gently, — the girl whose marriage with

Old Uncle Abe. 529

the young artist he had condemned so thoroughly — " Guy has gone to
get the sleigh ready, and I am come for you. We hope you will try
and put up with the small house and the children ; we will make
you heartily welcome if you will come to us."

" Ah ! " said Uncle Abe, rising with alacrity. " Well ! there's
nothing like hitting the nail on the head. I'll come now. Mrs.
Mandy can give me a few things in a hand-bag, and send the rest
after me."

He patted Susan Jane on the head, and smiled as he saw how
rapidly the sleighs were driving away from the door ; no one had
wished him good-bye. He went back and said a few words to his
housekeeper.

" Ready, Uncle Abe," said Guy, as he came in hastily. " Come
along then."

Mira and Susan Jane buttoned his coat tenderly about him, and
nearly smothered him with woollen wraps. Guy gave him his arm
down to the sleigh, which was nothing more than a box on runners.

" The children will be glad to see Uncle Abe," said Almira ; " they're
very fond of company."

The children were on the watch at the door of the small red house

where Guy made a home for his wife, and kept the pot boiling by

selling his pictures as fast as he could paint them.

* * * * *

A year passed by, and Uncle Abe still sat as a g^est at Guy Hallet's
table. It would be absurd to suppose that an extra mouth to feed
made no difference to the Hallets' household. Guy worked harder at
his pictures, and when summer came and there was no sale for them,
he might have been seen often at work in the fields helping the
farmers during the busy season. Almira worked harder than before to
clothe and feed her children on as little as might be ; but Uncle Abe
was never permitted to feel for a moment that his presence was a tax
on the slender resources of the household.

" Your husband's a fine man — uncommon fine," he observed one
day to Almira, as Guy came back at noon for his dinner after toiling
from early morning in the harvest fields ; " but I heard that artist-
fellow over at Montpelier say as he'd never be worth anything till he'd
been to Europe."

" That's very true," said Guy cheerily, coming !n at the door. *' But
you see, Uncle Abe, if we can't do what is the very best, we must
take the second best ; and I have to go lower still to third or fourth —
for I have to teach myself as I go along."

" I've never been to Europe," said Uncle Abe, after a long silence.
" I think I must go some day or other."

Husband and wife exchanged a look of amusement. Uncle Abe
often spoke as if he had command of a fortune still. Susan Jane
spent all her spare time at the Hallets', and an odd kind of affection
grew up between her and the lonely old man.

530 Old Uncle Abe.

" Susan Jane," he said, one day, " would you like to finish your
education in Europe ? "

Susan Jane clasped her hands in ecstasy. " Oh, Uncle Abe, if only
wishes were any use ! I've wished to go to Europe ever since I knew
enough to wish for anything," she replied.

" Ah ! " he said, nodding his head.

When the harvesting was over, the dinners began to get very meagre
— some of Guy's pictures were sent back as unsaleable. Almira, as she
pinched herself that others might have more to eat, was tormented by
a hacking cough which was obstinate in refusing to be cured by
common remedies. Guy began to look very sober whilst he was at
work, but after all, there was an element of cheerfulness always diffused
throughout the household by the bright-faced Almira.

" I want you to ask Susan Jane to dinner on Sunday," said Uncle
Abe, one day. It w^as the Sunday of Thanksgiving week. Susan
came, and though the dinner was a meagre affair, everyone was so
bright and cheerful that it might have been a feast which was spread
on the snow-white cloth. After dinner they sat round the fire, and
Uncle Abe said he'd tell them a story. It was a long round-about tale
of an old man who was very rich and who wanted his money to pass
into good hands, and so he tried to prove the sincerity of his friends
by pretending to be very poor.

" Well, well ! " said gentle Almira. " I think he ought not to feel
very angry when he was disappointed in their behaviour, because he
had no business to deceive them in that way, you know. He must
not judge them too hardly " — for the old man's eyes had flashed as he
told the story.

Uncle Abe laughed ; there was a knock at the door just then, and
in walked Mr. Stubbs the lawyer. He came in with a merry twinkle
in his eye, and joined the happy circle round the fire.

" Have you taken the passages ? " said Uncle Abe, presently.

" Yes, here they are ! " said he, smiling, as he put an envelope in
the old man's hand.

" W^ell, then, I think we'd better arrange our plans," said he. " Guy,
give me my spectacles and take a look at these. Can you be ready
to sail in a fortnight, Almira ? "

"Why, these are tickets for an ocean steamer," cried Guy, looking
at the lawyer for a meaning, thinking Uncle Abe was suddenly bereft
of his senses.

"Well, the fact is, I'm about tired of playing at poverty, and I'm
going to give 'it up," said Uncle Abe. " I've a fancy that Almira's cough
wants care, and Guy here and Susan Jane want more education ; so,
children, if you are willing to share an old man's wanderings, away we
go to Europe before the month is out."

The astonishment of the townsfolk knew no bounds ; jealousy of
the Hallets, and wrath at their own short-sighted folly, filled their cup

Old Uncle Abe. 531

of mortification to overflowing. They seized the lawyer and insisted
on pouring out their reasons for keeping aloof from Uncle Abe to his
unwilling ears.

" We thought he'd lost everything," said one.

" Ah, so did Guy Hallet ! " said the lawyer, quiedy.

" And didn't he leave all his money to the hospitals ? "

" Not a bit of it."

" Is it true that he has made his will ? "

" Quite true," was the reply. " I have his permission to say that
Almira, Guy, and Susan Jane will share the estate after his death ; and,
until that time, will be the recipients of a handsome income. Uncle
Abe is worth a good two millions."

" And they are all going to Europe ? "

" Yes ! Susan Jane is going to Paris to school, and Guy with his
wife and children and Uncle Abe are going to winter in Italy. And
if Guy Hallet doesn't turn out one of the first artists in the world, my
name's not Joseph Stubbs ! "

A CHRISTMAS CAROL.
By C. J. Langston.

Once a year the clouds are parted.

When in undertone I hear,
Blessings from the kindly-hearted,

Distant voices coming near.

Long ago the happy meeting.
Fuller friendship since avowed ;

Long ago, and still the greeting

Breaks through Christmas cold and cloud.

Other times, so great the distance.
Never swells the slightest sound ;

Stronger than the soul's resistance.
Are the vapours which surround.

But the year is light with gladness.
When the Birth of Christ drawls nigh ;

And the joy-bells cleave the sadness,
Shaking blessings from the sky.

532

IN A CATHEDRAL.

By Gilbert H. Page.

"pROM the ordeal of the family breakfast-table, from the torturing
-'- remarks and surmises of the wholly indifferent, Eva Mesurier
escaped at the earliest possible moment out-of-doors. At her heart
was a new and sharper pain. Hitherto there had always remained a
hope, however improbable. Now the song was out, the book closed,
the door upon the past for ever shut.

As Miss Mesurier walked through the Cathedral Close, the first
drops of a coming shower fell in big splashes upon the flagged path-
way, the summer sky rapidly darkened, the birds were silent in the
leafy recesses of the lime-trees. Ten o'clock service was just over,
and the handful of people emerging from the western door glanced up
at the clouds, opened umbrellas, and hurried past her with lifted skirts
and down-bent heads. " I had better go inside until it is over," she
decided ; and at that moment the rain descended with the suddenness,
swiftness and force only seen in July rain-storms. Sheets of water
seemed to suspend themselves from the Cathedral walls, torrents
poured from the gaping mouth of every gargoyle, rivulets ran foaming
along every gutter and side path. But just by reason of this falling
wall of water, which thus appealed to isolate it from the rest of the
world, Eva found the cold and solemn spirit of the Cathedral more
consoling than ever before.

She knew the place well outside and in ; for years every stone and
corner had been familiar to her. She could have found her way
blindfolded through the long drawn aisles from shrine to shrine ; she
could point out when the harebell trembled on its delicate stem, high
up on the coping above the " Slype Gate " ; but most faithfully had
she kept the secret of the starlings' nest in the tracery over the little
northern door. The serried pillars, the ever-succeeding arches, the
loftiness, the silence, the white light falling from windows whose
mediaeval glories were shattered by Cromwell's troops, the dim recesses
and shadowy-filled corners, exercised a charm upon her ever new and
ever strange. The old walls whispered to her their secrets ; she saw
the whole marvellous building as it first existed, an idea in the brain
of one man. She watched its creation ; she followed the thoughts
of those who built it ; the stories of the men and women who had
prayed in it or walked through it ever since ; she communed with the
gentle ghosts of the dead who lie buried beneath the pavements, and,
ceding to the magic of their silent voices, she let them carry her soul
away from a cold and narrow present to sunny dreams of the past —
sometimes into the mysterious past of seons ago, sometimes into the
dearly-loved past of a few years since.

i

In a Cathedral. 533

To-day, as she wandered aimlessly along the matted aisles, reverie
at once began to steal over her, for some one was practising on the
organ, and a wondrous melody awoke beneath skilfully-pressed fingers,
now rising triumphant and rolling away into the shadows of the groined
roof, now sinking into plaintive cadences, which floated out through
the open doors, to lose themselves in the ever-falling rain. Myriads
of flashing hues seemed to descend straight from heaven, and to break
into drops which rebounded high in air as they struck the pavement.

The Cathedral was not quite empty. Two young men stood by St.
Lutolf s shrine ; strangers evidently, for one read from a guide-book,
and a verger in his rusty black gown conversed with the other. What
was there in the turn of this man's head, in the broad tweed-covered
shoulders, that made such a strange feeling, half terror, half rapture,
catch at Eva's heart ? But when she saw his face, as he moved to
speak to his friend, the old disappointment was renewed.

The music played on.

Eva sat in her favourite seat in the transept, looking out through
the open door. At her feet was the gravestone of a womxan whose
writings had peopled the world with bright children of the imagination
— with girls witty, charming, good ; young men grave and gay ; with
valetudinarians who impose no burden, with rattles who cannot weary,
with bores who cannot bore ; who has made the names of these im-
mortal with her own so long as books shall last. But a woman who,
for all her fame, missed the best of life, who never had a child to call
her mother, who never knew the warmth of happy love. Does fame
make up for the want of these things ?

The music still played on.

She mused upon the mystery of life — its waste of powers, its frus-
tration of predestined ends. Here one with treasures of love and
devotion to lavish is pushed by circumstance aside ; there another
seeking this very treasure passes blindly by to break his heart and lose
his life in the search.

The spirit of the dead poet, whose passionate verse lives for ever in
the hearts of his lovers, passed close to Eva, walking through the aisle
he had paced so assiduously for a short space of time in his short life.
Following him came spectres of his poverty, his genius, his despair;
of the girl, cold and inappreciative, who carried in a careless hand the
letters he had written her, and which were destined to be sold one
day for money to a curious public ; of the friend who understood what
friendship means, and watched out the long death-agony beneath
Italian skies. Eva herself wandered over the Campagna, walked with
eager steps through the sunny streets of Rome ; saw, fancifully, sights
and peoples she was never in reality to see, tasted in imagination the
perfect joy she was never in reality to know.

The music still played on.

There was no one now in the Cathedral but the young man in the
tweed suit. He was standing at a little distance from her, looking

534 -^^^ ^ Cathedral.

towards her. The light from the great west window fell upon his
head and face. Ah, her first impression had been right, after all !
It was unmistakably Marcus Eversley. Wonderful delicious fortune
which threw them thus again together ! He came immediately over
to her, his eyes alight with the interest tempered by deference which
had always thrilled her. He gave the odd little bow she remembered
so well.

" Who would have thought of finding you here ? " he said. " What
an unexpected pleasure ! Are you staying in the town ? "

" We have been living here long," she answered, rather bewildered.

" Not so very long," he corrected, with a smile. " It is not so very
long, surely, since we were rowing together in Morecambe Bay ? Do
you remember ? "

Could she forget the happiest topmost hour of all the happy hours
that she had known him ? Again the boat seemed to rise and swell
upon the glittering, green, evening waters ; the rosy radiance of the
after-glow spread half over the heavens, and the tapering masts of the
shipping were outlined delicately against it ; the hulks, the barges, all
the crazy, picturesque buildings that jostled together to the very
harbour's edge, made a broad and black division between sea and
sky. Marcus rested on his oars and looked at her just as though he
were going to speak. Between terror and joy the moment was
intensely painful ; and then suddenly she read in his eyes that some
stronger impulse checked the words as they were about to flow, and
the desire left him. But, for all that, the moment lived a golden one
in her memory, for in it she had partially divined his feelings for her.

" Have you still your passion for all water ? " he said. " Do you
remember our little stream, so swift and clear, which runs between the
tall grasses of our meadows at Upton ? Do you remember how we
sat there together and looked at the silver minnows slipping over the
sandy bottom, our own faces smiling up at us from a background of
blue June heaven, the summer flies dimpling the water's surface ?
Shall we sit there again one day ? Though it is pleasant enough, too,
to sit with you here, and curious for me to be thus talking with you
above the graves of the dead."

The music still played on.

Eva looked at the strong, calm face of the man beside her, at its
beauty and its power, at its intense vitality, and the old familiar
disbelief in death, that had been wont to lay hold of her at uncertain
times, once more possessed her. It was well for reason to assert that
she herself must die ; for experience to prove that other people did
die. When she looked at Marcus she refused to credit that death
and he could have anything in common. Those meaning eyes could
never become dim and sightless ; that ruddy cheek could never lose
its glow ; the virile hand, so capable for work, so prompt for defence,
could never hang inert and powerless, any more than she herself, in
whose veins to-day youth and health and happiness coursed with long-

In a Cathedral. 535

forgotten vigour, should ever become old and listless, indifferent and
cold.

"You shall teach me some more wild flowers," he went on. " I
have not forgotten your lesson in the woods at Arlington. Golden
rod and golden ragwort, purple scabious and purple agrimony. You
see I remember them all. Was not that a walk — over the bare hills
and down to the heart of the wood, last year's dry leaves carpeting the
ground beneath our feet, the trees full of sunshine that fell in splashes
of gold upon the path before us, upon the wayside mosses, upon your
dress ! I remember that white dress of yours so well. Do you wear
it still ? "

" And," said Eva musingly, " when at last we left the woods and
followed the others over the village green to that curious, old-fashioned
inn where we had tea."

" And where I took you by the arm, and said, ' Now I will show
you a pretty woman ' ; and there was your own image smiling out at
you from a blurred and ancient looking-glass."

"Yes, it was silly, was it not? Yet I was pleased that you were
pleased, and so I think I really did look well that day."

" Never was there such a capital meal as we then sat down to — such
home-made bread, such butter and honey ! And afterwards, when
w^e found our way upstairs to the village assembly-room, and one of
our party sat down to the loose-voiced piano and gave us waltzes, do
you remember how we danced — you and I — round the empty room,
while the summer gloaming gathered thick in the corners, and every
moment through the open window^s we saw the sky assume a deeper,
darker blue ? Do you remember ? "

" And the drive home, when Jupiter, hanging low over the forest,
began to assume his supremacy for the night. And the harbour lights,
that dropped long, trembling reflections in the water ; and the silent,
empty streets ; and how you stood with us all at the garden-gate while
we said good-night. And how friendly you seemed, and yet the
immense time you let slip before you came to see us again. Do you
remember that ? "

The music still played on.

" Do you not know why ? " said Marcus, very earnestly. " I was
afraid of myself, and I was not sure of you. I loved you, but I was
proud, and I wanted a sign. And you were always as good and gay
with all the world as you were with me ; in fact, you seemed even
more light-hearted when in company with others. Do you not
remember ? "

" That was the sign. How could you fail to understand it ?
With the world one can smile and be gay ; with the beloved, one is
silent through terror and through joy. But you never came to me
for sympathy in vain ; you never expressed the faintest wish to which
I did not instantly respond. You had but to shake the bough ever
so slightly, and the fruit would have fallen at your feet. But it was

53^ ^^^ ^ Cathedral.

not doubt of this that stayed your hand. There must have been
something else. Do you not remember ? "

" It is true," said he, " there were other things. I was young, and
life with so many untried chances lay before me ; I did not want to
take an irrevocable step so soon. Then I was poor, I had my way
to make ; it seemed wiser to walk free. I was ambitious ; it seemed
easier to rise alone. I said to myself, ' Time enough in ten years,
and though I lose her, there will still be fair fresh faces, kind eyes,
and sweet lips to choose from.' For then I understood all these
things very dimly. Now I know that the gift which I would not
stretch out my hand to take was offered me by God Himself, and
that there was none other like it in the world for me. I am telling
you everything at last, Eva. Can you forgive me ? "

" You are giving me Heaven. What is there to forgive ? "

*****

The music had ceased.

Eva lifted her eyes. She was alone ; the cathedral was empty.
Through the open door she saw the rain had ceased too. The
outside landscape, bathed again in strong sunlight, with every wet
and glittering leaf flashing back like a looking-glass the colours of the
sky, appeared, seen through these open doors, some brilliant jewel-
picture set in the framework of grey stone wall.

There was a clinking of keys, and the organist let himself out at
the iron gates dividing chancel from transept. As he approached,
Eva saw it was young Dell, one of Dr. Armstrong's pupils. He
stopped to speak to her.

" If I were to come round this afternoon about four, should I find
Eva at home, do you suppose ? "

It was of course for the Eva of a younger generation that the other
Eva answered : "I will tell her you are coming."

" Oh, she wouldn't stay in for that ! " remarked the boy ruthfully,
but with such an obvious desire to be contradicted in his face that
Miss Mesurier smiled.

" We shall see ! " she said gently.

The young fellow blushed and grew embarrassed. He sought to
turn the conversation.

"What did you think of those voluntaries I was playing? But —
it's awfully rude of me, I know — but really you look as though you
had been asleep ! "

" I don't think that I have been asleep," said Eva ; " but I was
dreaming, perhaps."

Yes, dreaming that she was young again ; that Marcus Eversley
who had never spoken, who had drifted apart from her, of whom she
had not heard for years, until with a sudden dreadful heart-pang she
had read of his death in that morning's paper, was alive and young
too, and that he loved her with the passion she had vainly spent
on him.

(fl ,_

537

THE MIRACLE OF MUSIC.

The music flows beneath Beethoven's touch

And finds mysterious way
To golden memories hid in all men's hearts,

Though heads be bowed and grey.

For, as the stately harmony floats by,

A vision of life's morn
Rises for one. Two figures, hand in hand.

Walking among the corn.

He sees the sunlight die along those fields.

And there comes out a star,
And then a little white sail glides from sight

Beyond the harbour bar.

They never met again who parted then

On that still autumn strand ;
Yet surely on his soul there falls to-night

Touch of an unseen hand !

Then one — so old and lonely — lives again

In childhood's merry days.
What matter that the world forget or scorn ?

He hears his mother's praise.

Next, in a heart grown somewhat hard and cold,

A long-forgotten face
Rises upon the music's softest tone.

And smiles from its old place.

Ah, could she but come back again to-night

(He knows not if she lives)
He would unsay some cruel words — and 3^et

He feels that she forgives !

And one, who dreamed good dreams and made them true.

Whose life has been a psalm,
Mounts on the melody to mystic realms

Where all is glad and calm.

Where, though grand problems and great tasks remain,

All helpless tears are done,
And man goes joyfully to work with God

Because they are at one !

For as mute exiles in unkindly crowds

Their home-sick memories bear,
So souls sit lonely in those hidden depths

No other soul can share.

Until the miracle of music works.

Under the Master's hands.
And breathes a secret message to each soul.

That each soul understands !

Isabella Fvvie Mayo.

VOL LIV. 2 K

538

AUNT ORSOLA.
I.

" A NNA mia^ you are the luckiest girl in the world ! "

■^^ Perhaps she was — you shall judge for yourself — but she cer-
tainly did not look as if she herself thought so.

The two sisters were pacing slowly down the one broad walk of
their ill-kept garden. To their left lay the vineyard, to their right
the house and its narrow strip of flower-garden in which huge
oleanders bloomed and bushes of scarlet geranium blossomed,
interspersed with such plants as could brave the red ochreous soil and
the almost ever-beating sun. All wore an arid look — from the
cracked plaster and blistered paint of the house to the dry, yellow
grass that untidily bordered the path upon which the girls were
lingering. But the spell of Italian loveliness lay upon all, and
rendered almost beautiful what would have been unbearable in other
lands.

In front of the little dwelling a vineyard terraced down to the
shimmering sea ; right and left undulating hills thickly clad with olive
trees ; behind them a chain of craggy heights, here and there crowned
with feathery pines, but more often towering, bold and bare, and
contrasting their red brown hues with the pure blue overhead.

Add to this the odour of aromatic herbs mingling with that of
brine ; the song of the cigala ; a flood of golden sunshine steeping
the earth and caressing the slumbering sea ; and you will have an
outline of the scene in which Anna and Cordelia were wandering,
and amid which they had been born.

Though respectively seventeen and eighteen they can indeed
scarcely be said ever to have lived elsewhere. For their father. Count
Altamonte, had died while they were quite children ; and, immediately
after her husband's death, the Countess had retired permanently to
the only property that remained to her, there to live in seclusion with
her daughters upon the pittance that fell to them after the payment ta
the last centesimo of the Count's debts.

They were, as the Italians say, " noble as the sun and poor as the
moon." But they all three bore their poverty bravely, and made the
best they were able of the privations it imposed. They wore their
cotton dresses to the last verge of possibility ; took an interest in all
the little vicissitudes of their rustic neighbours — they had no others —
went to mass on Sundays at the little church on the beach below ;
and, all things considered, led a peaceful, if a monotonous life.

The house itself — it was not a cottage, for, unfortunately, in our

Atmt Orsola. 539

sense of the word, there are no cottages in Italy — would have been
discomfort itself in any other land. The walls were stencilled ; the
floors of red brick, the furniture scant. And yet it was pleasant
enough with the balmy summer wind setting the red cotton curtains
softly waving, and with the song of the birds and the scent of the
brine floating freely in through the widely opened windows and doors.
And in winter, too, it was not without a certain cheeriness with a fire
of mingled olive-wood and pine-cones blazing upon the only hearth
the house possessed ; save that in the kitchen, on v,hich you could
have roasted an ox whole, and which was never used unless on
washing days ; the modest cooking of the establishment being daily
done on a brick range over a handful of charcoal.

The entire household numbered but five persons : the Contessa,
her two daughters, and an old couple, Gianbattista and his wife
Erminia ; the former, vinedresser, gardener, and all else that might be
required ; the latter, housekeeper, cook and laundress. They had
been with Countess Altamonte for over twenty years, and would have
flung themselves into the fire to do either of their three mistresses a
service. But neither of them was ever hard-taxed, mother and
daughters being both kindly and amiable, and therefore not difficult
to please. Added to that, the old couple seemed to find repose more
wearisome than work. They were incessantly busy about some-
thing, save on Sundays ; then, after mass, Battista might ever have
been seen sitting in the sun or the shade, according to the season, in
all the solemnity of horn spectacles and holiday clothes, pufling away
at a well-blackened pipe ; while Erminia, in blue spotted print and
white apron, went the rounds upon a general inspection of all that the
property produced. Nothing ever escaped her — from the purloining
of a peach, or the abduction of a chicken, up to the going wrong of a
wine vat, or the appearance of disease among the vines. Her sharp
old eyes ferreted out everything.

"Yes, Anna," repeated Cordelia, "you are a lucky girl. Just
think what a change ! "

" Change, indeed ! And it's just that "

Anna paused in step and speech, stooped to pluck a sprig of thyme,
turned slowly and seated herself upon the low, broad stone bench they
had just passed. Cordelia sat down beside her.

Here and there a ray of sunshine penetrated the boughs of the
venerable ilex overhead, to fall in splashes of golden light upon the
two sisters — upon Cordelia's red-brown coil of hair and pink-and-white
complexion, upon Anna's raven tresses and creamy skin. The soft dark
eyes of the latter were dreamily fixed upon the shimmering sea below\

" Does it grieve you so to leave us, then ? " She laid her head
upon her sister's shoulder as she spoke.

" Yes, that it does — to the very heart."

" But it cannot be for very long, Anna. Aunt Orsola — grand-aunt, I
should say — must be very old, and "

2 K 2

540 Ajuit Orsola.

" Yes, I know ; and I've tried to reconcile myself to the change ;
but I cannot — I cannot.''

" A change from night to day, almost from poverty to enormous
wealth."

" Ah, Cordelia, I wish she had chosen you." I wonder if
mamma were to write and propose your going instead "

" Anna, it would be worse than useless. "We have never seen Aunt
Orsola — mamma never saw her but once, just before her marriage, yet
we know what people say about her — full of antiquated notions —
something like a mania in all that regards the nobility and dignity of
her race."

" She has never thought of us in our poverty all these long years."

" \\'ell, that's true ; but the case was different. While her nephew
lived, she had an heir in the male line."

" Poor fellow ! What a pity he didn't stay at home instead of going
to Africa and getting killed. I heartily wish he was alive again.
And then, think of our aunt's insisting that there is to be no com-
munication— that I am to be cut off from all I love. That I am —
oh, she's a cruel old woman, that's what she is ! "

" She's half mad, as I said before. And no wonder, considering
the solitary life she leads, shut up, year after year, in that old feudal
castle of hers."

" Battista knows the place. He lived on the estate when a boy.

He must have seen our aunt. And then there's " Anna stopped

short and sighed.

" Yes, I know, Anna. Poor Alberto ! But do you think mamma
would have allowed you to marry him ? With our nobility and
name — a simple farmer almost ? "

" I am sure of it. Poor mamma has had a hard time of it ; she has
learned that family without fortune is but a mockery. We haven't a
relation in the wide world but Aunt Orsola, and she only deigned to
notice us when she needed us. She had much better have left us
in peace. She could leave her money to a hospital."

" And her name and title ? " asked Cordelia.

" I, for one, don't wish ever to be Marchioness della Rocca
d'Oro. I could have been so happy here ! "

Tears welled up into Anna's dark eyes as she said this. They
blurred the brightness of the rippling waters upon which she was
gazing. Another vision, too, rose before her. The stalwart young
proprietor of a somewhat extensive and near-lying property ; hand-
some, kindly, open-hearted and deeply in love. The thought was too
much, Anna lay her head upon her sister's shoulder and wept
outright.

What a happy past was that which now floated up from memor}''s
mystic depths ! The iris hues hindered aught less bright and beauti-
ful than themselves from rising. Maternal and sisterly love, Battista
and Erminia's affection. Then the innocent idyll that in the golden

Atmt Orsola. 541

sunshine, and amid the many-hued loveliness of her birthplace, had
grown up to its present strength and beauty. The timid glances at
mass, the occasional meeting of fingers at the Holy Font ; the
excursions up among the breezy heights, Alberto carefully leading his
quietest horse, and doing all in his power to spare the Countess the
smallest shock or jolt ; she and Cordelia gaily leading the van, and
springing like young goats amid the rocks and rosemary bushes ;
Battista and Erminia bringing up the rear with the provisions for the
day. Alberto's first flowers, his unconnected, yet well understood
words, the rosy Eden that suddenly blossomed around her, as one
evening, on the little terrace overlooking the sea and beneath the
white moonlight, the confession of mutual love had been sealed by
a kiss. All, and a hundred times more, floated up before her, till,
with a heart-broken voice, she cried, " Cordelia, Cordelia, I cannot,
cannot go ! "

" But what is to be done, dearest ? "

" I don't know ; but I will not go. Oh, yes " — correcting herself
— "jou must take my place ! If one of us two is to become
Marchioness Rocca d'Oro, it must be you, not I."

" But how, Anna ? "

" I'm not quite sure yet ; I must think it out well. You just help
me to learn all I can about Aunt Orsola."

" It won't be much ; nobody seems really to know her. We'll ask
Battista."

" Battista can hardly tell us more than we know," said Anna.
" Orsola Marchesa della Rocca d'Oro in her own right is a maiden of
eighty, of enormous wealth. I think mamma said she never married
because she couldn't find any one whose blood was sufficiently blue.
She lives, shut up in her castle, as much as she possibly can, like her
ancestors of a hundred years ago."

" Well, I don't know that I should object to that, Anna. I dare
say the life is "

" But I object. I'd rather share a hut with Alberto than possess
all Rocca d'Oro ! "

" Poor Anna ! Well, what more ? "

" That's all, I think. Oh, she hates progress, and says railroads
are the invention of Satan."

" I don't see what excuse you can ever find. Have you asked
Alberto to help you ? "

" Yes ; but he refused flatly. No one, he declared, should ever be
able to say that he had uttered one word to hinder my going. Dear,
noble, stupid fellow ! "

" That's just like Alberto ! I was sure " Erminia's shrill voice

calling them to their noonday dinner interrupted Cordelia's phrase.
The two sisters rose and, hand in hand, proceeded towards the
house.

542 Atmt Orsola.

II.

It was a pretty picture. Alberto leaning over the little gate, his
muscular arms reposing comfortably upon the topmost bar, and his
admiring loving gaze fixed upon Anna within ; she standing with her
coarse straw hat in her hand, and from time to time raising her soft
dark eyes to his. The spreading pine overhead flung chequered
shadows, soft and swaying, down upon the lovers, and now and again
a prying sunbeam would steal in as if to peer at them. They never
noted the golden spy, however, so wrapped up were they in themselves
and each other. Nor did they notice the approaching steps of
Cordelia and old Battista, she with a basket in her hand, he carrying
one of those long bamboo canes, the upper end of which is split into
a sort of funnel kept open by a cork and secured with wire — the im-
plement with which, in primitive Italy, fruit is gathered from the tops
of the high trees.

" \ye are going to get some figs for mamma," said Cordelia, stopping.
" I think there must be some ripe by now. Will you come, Alberto ? "

With a glad smile the young man opened the little gate and entered,
The four took their way across the vineyard over to where an enormous
fig-tree raised its leafy head. The warm air was redolent with the aroma
of rosemary, southernwood, lavender, and a hundred aromatic herbs,
while, from time to time, a fresher whiff floated up from below, bringing
with it the acrid odour of brine. The cigala sang merrily in the
golden sunshine, and the idle swish of waters upon the sands made
itself heard at intervals. Three young voices rang out clearly, how-
ever, to which Battista's bass was now and again added. They were
all so happy ; all was so beautiful and bright around, the sunshine of
heart and heaven had put to flight, for the moment, even Aunt Orsola's
menacing image.

Under the fig-tree they all sat down, the girls upon a flat yellow
stone, the two men upon the red, roughly-hoed soil in front. Battista
mopped away at his old bald head with a red cotton handkerchief that
smelt strongly of stale tobacco ; Alberto drew out a couple of cigars
and fumbled in his numerous pockets for the needful matchbox ; the
girls fanned themselves, and, at times, also the two men, with their
wide-brimmed hats.

"Now, Battista," said Cordelia, "we want you to tell us all you
know about Aunt Orsola and Rocca d'Oro."

" About Rocca d'Oro as much as you please ; but about Signora
Marchesa — well, I don't know what I can tell you. I scarcely ever
saw her to speak to, and if I had to tell you all that the rest used to
say about her, why, we should sit her till to-morrow. My memory,
too, is so bad "

" Here's a cigar to help it," said Alberto, handing him one.

The old man's dark eyes flashed with delight as he took it and lit

Atmt Orsola. 543

it, with a gusto that was pleasant to see. A cigar, and especially a
good one like that, was a rare treat. A briarwood pipe and doubtful
tobacco were his ordinary solace.

" What used they to say ? "

" Oh, a thousand things — each stranger than the other."

" For example — ? "

" Who can tell now ? It is so long, long ago. And then, every one
had something different. They even declared she was a sorceress and
had made compact with "

Battista broke off and crossed himself.

" But that's impossible, you know. You don't mean to say you
believe that ? "

" I can't tell," replied Battista : " I beUeve and I don't believe.
She has a bad name all around, anyhow, in spite of her money."

"Yes?"

" What with her pride, her cats, and her geology "

" Her what ? "

" Her geology. The picture of a great tree ; it hangs in the big
hall, and instead of fruit it bears dukes, and marquesses, and princes.
It is quite full of them. And her ladyship stands before it for hours,
they say. I've even heard say it's a sort of Satan's mass-book — God
forgive me ! — and that she is bound to worship before it for a certain
time every day. I myself saw her there once. They say she speaks
to the princes and dukes, and once she was seen crying before them.
If that's not sorcery, I don't know what is ! She calls it geology, but
other folk "

" Genealogy, Battista. If you had ever dared look, you would have
seen our name — mamma's, at least — there also."

" The saints forbid ! I "

" And the cats ? " interrupted Anna.

" She used to have eight of them. They dined and supped with
her ; and they all had names."

" Well, they, at least, must be dead and gone long ago. Why, it's
years and years "

" Dead ! Gone ! You think so ! They're no such thing " — here
he lowered his voice. " They were no more real cats than we are."

" What are they, then ? "

" The spirits of the dukes and princes painted upon the tree.
There were beasts painted there, too ; but beasts such as none of us
ever saw — monsters — one woman with the tail of a fish, a green lion

with it was the devil's book, I'm sure," concluded Battista, rising

and picking up his cane, "and nothing will ever take the belief out of
me. And you. Miss Anna, you just take old Tista's advice and keep
away from Rocca d'Oro as far as ever you can."

Alberto could have hugged him for those words.

544 Atmt Or sola.

III.

The long, tiresome journey came to an end at last, and Anna found
herself safely deposited at the Ivrea station. The town, once famous
in Italian history, can still boast of many records of turbulent feudal
times. Nowadays, however, it is noted for nothing in particular, save
its carnival, which is still held with much gaud and glitter, and whose
procession of armed knights, in the panoply and gear of dead
centuries, issuing from the frowning old walls, gives no weak idea of
gallants of days gone by thronging to a tournament.

The Piedmontese are certainly the English of Italy, and, going a
step further, the people of the Canevesato and Monferrato may be
likened to the Scotch. They are hardy, pugnacious, fiery, tenacious,
and conservative to the backbone.

The nobility of these two districts is among the purest and best in
the land ; and of this nobility Orsola, Marchesa della Rocca d'Oro
considered herself the culminating point.

To a certain extent her pretensions had been allowed, for the
family — now reduced to her stately self and two penniless grandnieces
whom nobody knew anything about — had certainly, in days gone by,
been the first among all. Nobody could deny that. Nobody did
deny it. But as time went on Orsola della Rocca secluded herself
entirely from a world which she declared to be turning upside down,
and buried herself amidst her boundless forests and broad lands,
hugging her peculiar ideas more and more tenaciously, growing more
and more reserved, and thus yearly widening the gulf between herself
and the rest of mankind.

She gave money freely, when asked by her chaplain to do so ; but
unaccompanied by any outward sign of sympathy. Thus, to the
worthy, at least, depriving the gift of half its value.

Her antiquated body-guard, Brigitta, seemed to be the only person
for whom she ever openly expressed sympathy. Brigitta and her cats !
For the descendants of the feline pets, mentioned by Battista, still
flourished at the castle, though reduced to six.

With her usual despotic eccentricity the old lady had dictated the
minutest particulars of Anna's journey. Her mother and sister were
to accompany her to Ivrea, consign her to Brigitta, who would be
there to receive her, and then, without an hour's delay, return whence
they had come. Her letter had enclosed a note of a thousand francs
I"or travelling expenses.

Countess Altamonte had obeyed to the letter, but with a heavy
heart. Nothing but her own poverty on the one side, and the
enormous fortune at stake on the other, could ever have decided her;
For the fortune was enormous, and would render one of her daughters,
at least, perhaps the greatest heiress in Italy. Under any other
circumstances Anna would have enjoyed the drive in that huge.

Atmt Orsola. 545

antiquated coach, with its four fat horses, bevvigged driver, and liveried
servants.

Such scenery as they passed through was utterly new to her, and
entirely different from that of her Southern home — undulating fields
and rows of mulberry-trees, green hedges and shadowy lanes ; white
homesteads peeping forth from groups of enormous walnut-trees ; a
broad, level, well-kept high road, along which the carriage bowled
without swerve or jolt.

At last they turned aside and began to wind amid the sinuosities of
ever-rising hills.

"The Contessina is now upon the lands of her illustrious aunt,''
said Brigitta, in a solemn tone.

The old lady looked as if she expected the girl to reply by some
indication of respectful awe. But she did nothing of the sort. She
wiped her eyes and gazed sadly and indifferently out of the window.

Brigitta was sitting bolt upright opposite her. She would as soon
have thought of eating meat on Friday as of occupying a seat together
with one who had della Rocca blood in her veins. The good w^oman
had been all her long life so saturated with the grandeur of the family,
that she had almost come to regard them as something quite apart
from the rest of mankind.

Up they wound among the hills — now between green banks over-
shadow^ed with hazel and elder ; now across miniature prairies covered
with short, juicy grass ; here along a gentle stream, in w^hose clear,
brow^n w^aters the pale stems of the beaches and the blue sky overhead
mirrored themselves ; there skirting a rock-bound torrent churning
itself into foam amid the boulders ; past fern-clad nook, smiling
mead, shady glade, frowning forest ; yet ever up, up, up, till at last,
grim and grey, the towers of the castle showed amid the oaks
and firs.

Anna's heart beat fast as the equipage drew up at the grand
entrance. She sickened as she thought of the dear old home, so
different and so far away ! But there was no time for thought, for
Brigitta stood waiting to help her out.

" And whatever you do, Contessina, do not forget the three
reverences — the first just inside the door, the second "

But the old woman's w^hispered instructions were cut suddenly short
by Anna's pulling herself together with an effort, springing past, and
bounding up the broad perron and across the lordly threshold with as
little ceremony as if she had once more been at the farmhouse.

" Santa Maria ! " exclaimed the astounded Abigail, as she gazed
after the girl with open mouth and distended eyes. " What will the
Marchioness "

Anna disappeared within.

For a moment or two she could distinguish nothing. Then, little
by little, as out of a mist, objects loomed forth. An enormous hall
with a gigantic staircase to the right ; figures in full armour against the

54^ Atmt Or sola.

lofty walls ; above them trophies of arms and tattered banners ; a
dozen or so of full-length portraits, black, indistinct, spectre-like.
At the further end a dais surmounted by a canopy — the della Roccas
were " Marchesi del Baldacchino " — that is, they had held and
executed right of jurisdiction in times gone by — and furnished with a
species of unwieldy arm-chair, huge and worn, once velvet and
gilding, but now retaining few traces of its ancient splendour.

Beside this chair, and from which she had evidently risen, stood a
little old lady with dark, lustrous eyes, puffs of snowy hair surmounted
by an indescribable fabric of lace, and in a dress such as had long
vanished from the modes of earth.

On her left stood an aged priest and two elderly gentlemen ; on
her right, but quite in the background, a number of servants, male
and female, the former in full livery, the latter all clad alike.

For a second Anna faltered, for her heart began to fail her. Then
fortunately her eyes fell upon the famous genealogical tree with its
emblazoned ramifications, and at the sight fresh courage awoke.
Mother and sister, Alberto and Battista, started up before her ; and,
with Tista's word " geology " sounding in her ears, she stepped
forward. Almost before she knew where she was she found herself
face to face with her eccentric relative. In a trice she had stepped
upon the dais and kissed the old lady upon both cheeks. Then,
half terrified at what she had done, she caught hold of the arm of the
chair for support, and, with downcast eyes, awaited what was to come.

The silence was appalling, and was all unbroken save by a series of
inarticulate sounds from the lips of the petrified grand-aunt. The
sounds grew more distinct, then finally resolved themselves into the
one word " Ma-de-moi-selle ! "

One word only, it is true, but a single word, each syllable of which
contained a volume. Amazement, dismay, anger, horror, were each
and all clearly indicated.

" Ma-de-moi-selle ! " was repeated in fainter tones ; and then the
bewildered chatelaine sank back within the friendly arms of the seat
behind her.

There was a murmur among the spectators, none of whom, however,
ventured to interfere by either word or sign.

" Dear aunt," said Anna, laying one of her thoroughbred but
terribly sunburnt hands upon the old lady's shoulder, " I am very
sorry. I ought not to have been so abrupt, but I am very impulsive ;
and as you, after mamma and Cordelia, are my nearest relative, pray
forgive me ! You'll get used to me in time."

" Get used to you ! " repeated the old lady in a faint troubled
tone that sounded like an echo, and gazing up into her niece's face.
" Get used to you ! "

" Yes, of course you will. One of you there, bring a glass of
water. Do you feel faint, aunt ? "

One of the servants hurried out to obey the order. He gave a

Aunt Orsola. 547

meaning glance as he passed his fellows. It meant, " the old one
has got her match there."

A fresh murmur among the bystanders and a step towards the
centre of attraction.

" She can't be a Rocca d'Oro — she must be a changeling," mur-
mured the old marchioness, whose eyes had never been withdrawn
from Anna's face. None but Anna heard the remark, so low was the
tone in which it was uttered.

The reply to it, however, rang out clear enough for all to hear —
the grim ancestors included. Possibly they trembled in their frames
as they listened — those in the flesh around certainly felt a shiver of
excitement as they caught the words :

" Of course I am a Rocca d'Oro, or half one, at least. By
my father's side a Montalto. The Montaltos can trace back their
ancestors to nearly fifty years beyond the della Roccas, and
so "

" Blasphemy — sheer blasphemy ! what do you mean by it ? "
murmured the marchioness.

A groan from the bystanders.

" Oh, I thought you knew. I'm sorry. Please don't be vexed.
It doesn't signify, you know. Ancestors are all very well in their
\vay, but they don't count for much nowadays. The world is
growing wdser."

"The world is going to destruction — that's what it is. I wish I
were well out of it."

Something in the tone of the last words went straight to Anna's
heart. With genuine feeling she knelt at her aunt's feet and, taking
one of her withered but still beautiful hands in both her own, kissed
it with real affection.

The Marchioness lay back in her chair with closed eyes. She
made no attempt to withdraw her hand, only murmured : " She is a
della Rocca, after all ; but my heiress — no — no "

Anna alone caught the w^ords. They awakened a deep joy in her
heart. A joy so great as to cause her to break out into a fit of
hysterical weeping amid w^hich, under her aunt's direction, she w^as
led off to her rooms by Brigitta.

The little crowd opened obsequiously upon her passage. Anna
had awakened a feeling of decided respect in all present. Perhaps
not least of all in the Marchioness herself.

None but a genuine Rocca d'Oro could have ventured upon doing
what Anna Montalto had just done. None witnessed the reaction.

IV.

Orsola della Rocca had begun to feel herself in a whirl of con-
tinual contradictions. Her niece's character and behaviour fairly
bewildered her. The most audacious, and, to her, blasphemous,

54^ Aunt Or sola,

outbreaks of ridicule at the expense of the defunct ancestors and the
departed glory of their house alternated with the most affectionate
and all-unused-to tenderness towards herself. It was something so
new and unexpected that it puzzled, pained, and pleased the old lady
in a most incomprehensible manner. She was not as yet aware of it,
but the consciousness of not being so great and independent a
personage as she had hitherto fancied herself had begun to dawn
upon her. The icy crust that seclusion had built up around her heart
was beginning, not to melt, but to crack ; and through the crevices
she caught glimpses of something better, higher and more worthy of
living for, than worldly grandeur and earthly respect. Anna's sallies
against all she had hitherto lived for, so to say, awakened a feeling of
horror in the old lady's breast ; but, at the same time, they also
awakened no small amount of respect for the speaker. No living
creature had ever dared speak in her presence in such a manner.

" It must all be the fault of her education," she would say ; adding
with a sigh : " What a pity ! What a pity ! "

For she never dreamed that these audacious sallies were prompted
by cowardice — that Anna was like the soldier who threw himself into
the breach because he saw no other way of escape.

And then, the Marchioness had, as many of us have, a fair share
of the nettle in her. Touched with a shrinking hand, she stung ;
grasped with firmness, she remained harmless. Human nature cannot
seclude itself from all save subordinate surroundings without paying
the penalty of such an imprudence.

Anna instinctively felt that her aged relative needed affection ;
and, in consequence, her whole heart went out towards her. Anna
was one of those who love all who stand in need of being loved.
The whole castle took kindly to her — even the cats, who used to
purr around her, their round heads rubbing against her dress, and
their upright tails waving tremulously in the air. It was a trifle, but
it wove a fresh link of the chain that was gradually binding aunt and
niece to each other.

" I am sorry — very, very sorry ! " the former would sigh. " She is
kind and good, but, with her unhappy tendencies, she could never
represent the family. I shall have to send for Cordelia. Ah, I am
hardly tried ! Not only a girl, but perhaps also a younger one. My
poor nephew — if you had only lived ! " It was terrible.

And then she felt her old arid heart daily thawing towards the girl
with the sweet dark eyes and kindly smile. That was terrible, too, in
its way. What was she to do ? How would it all end ? Meanwhile
poor Anna was secretly pining amid all the solemn grandeur of her
new life. She never complained, but she hated it, and her heart
sickened when she thought of her dear ones in the old home by the
open, sunlit sea. And she thought of them often enough !

The stately daily meals were a torment to her, with their endless
dishes, their liveried servants, their choice wines, the enormous dining-

Atmt Orsola. 549

hall, and her aunt and herself, the chaplain and the secretary, seated
at a table that would have accommodated a score, and left ample
elbow-room into the bargain.

What a difference ! And how many hundred times pleasanter were
the homely meals of simple minestra, polenta, roasted larks redolent
of rosemary, fish, salad, and so on, served on delft, and enjoyed with
an appetite born of exercise and content ! And the laughter and the
chat, and Alberto, and old Erminia bustling from kitchen to dining-
room, pressing everyone to eat, and joining in the conversation as if
one of themselves, yet without losing one atom of respect or forgetting
her place for a moment.

Dear old Erminia ! What a distance from her withered, smiling
face to the marble features of the footmen who watched every morsel
she put into her mouth, and who seemed always to be lying in wait
to pounce upon the plate before her ! Her aunt was, after her fashion,
very kind to her, and Anna's loving heart was filled with gratitude in
consequence.

When she did break out in some sally or another against blue blood
in general, and the ancestors in particular, it grieved her quite as
much as it did the old lady ; but to do so was her only bulwark
against adoption, and every day that passed convinced her more and
more of her unfitness for playing the great lady, and confirmed her
dislike to doing so.

Wonderful to relate, there were no ghosts at Rocca d'Oro, in spite
of ancestors of every moral hue, and a mass of masonry in which any
number of the same might have lurked.

Not a belted knight paced the long echoing galleries — not a veiled
lady glided down the wide staircases. No millionaire's modern
mansion could have been freer from phantoms than was the castle.

But, to make up for this defect, there was a haunted ruin within
a stone's throw — a high tower crowning a rocky crest, surrounded by
a belt of bushes and straggling oaks.

V.

It was a rainy, wretched day. Woods and rocks glistened and
streamed, and the sky was of a uniform leaden hue. Anna was
sitting at one of the wide windows of her room. Sofia, the maid
assigned to her exclusive service, was working at a table near. With-
out, nothing was heard but the pitiless pattering of the rain upon the
boughs, and the awakening voice of the little stream yonsides the
ridge upon which the tower rose. Within the castle itself absolute
silence reigned.

"Why is that old ruin yonder called the 'Bella Alda's Tower,'
Sofia ? "

" Signorina, do you not know ? I thought everybody "

550 Aunt Orsola.

" No one ever told me, so how could I know ? There — leave that
skirt and come and sit by me in the window here."

Nothing loth, the girl obeyed. She had, like all the household,
learned to love the simple, kindly-mannered young lady who had a
gentle smile and a cordial word for all who approached her. They
could scarcely credit her being a Rocca d'Oro, so different was her
character from that which had become legendary in the country round.

" Well, you must know," began Sofia, " that hundreds of years ago
— I forget how many — a certain Marchese Corrado was master here.
And he was a demon, signorina — a very demon, and the terror of all
he came across. For he spared neither high nor low, rich nor poor,
and woe to any one who ventured to come between him and his
desires."

" I understand. Go on."

" Down there, on the other side of the ridge, there lived in those
days a forester and his family — I don't know his name, but it doesn't
matter — good, honest people, and well-to-do also, for their daughter was
brought up almost like a lady, and used to pass much of her time here
at the castle together with the young ladies. Do I explain myself? "

"Yes — perfectly. And so "

" So she grew up, and was known for many miles round as the
most beautiful maiden in all the land. Even now they speak of her
big blue eyes and wonderful golden hair."

" And, of course, the Marquis Corrado, the demon, fell in love with
her?"

" Just so : the ]Marquis fell in love with her, and it was very wrong
of him ; for he couldn't marry her, you know — she was only a forester's
daughter, and, besides that, he had a wife already."

" That was a difficulty, certainly."

" La Bella Alda " — for so everybody called her — was a good, honest
girl, and would never listen to any of his declarations. She avoided
him whenever she could. But the Marquis at last got furious, and
one unlucky day he met the Bella Alda close to the foot of the tower
yonder, and tried to seize her. There was no way of escape, so, in
her terror, she flew up the steps of the tower — they must have been
whole then, not like now, though one can still manage to scramble
up to the platform at the top. Michele told me it was hard work for
him, and he's a man. He went up to get me a pigeon's-nest."

" AVho is Michele ? "

Sofia blushed, looked down for a second, and then replied : " The
sub-intendent's son and my future husband. As brave and fine a
young man as ever walked ! "

" My best wishes to you both ! And La Bella Alda ? "
" Yes. She reached the platform safe enough, but with the Marquis
close behind her. He stretched out his hands to lay hold of her.
' If you touch me, I spring over,' she cried. But he only laughed.
Then, with a ' Holy Virgin protect me ! ' over she sprang ! "

Aunt Orsola. 551

" How dreadful ! "

" Dreadful indeed ! That is, it might have been dreadful. It was
wonderful instead. For the Holy Virgin heard her prayer and bore
her up, so that she reached the ground as safe and sound as you
or I."

" And the Marquis ? "

" The Marquis ? He had gone up with hair as black as a crow,
when he came down it was white as my lady's. Soon after, his wife
died — of a broken heart it was said. Then he entered a monastery."

"And La Bella Alda?"

" She lived on for years. But she grew proud and pretentious :
all Satan's doing, Father Ambrose says ; he was determined to have
her soul one way or another : and went telling everybody that she was
under the Blessed Virgin's especial protection, and people used
sometimes to laugh at her. And one day, when she had been boast-
ing as usual, they dared her to take the leap again. And she did it,
and was taken up dead."

" Horrible ! " cried Anna, with a shudder.

" Horrible, indeed ! but it was her just punishment. Father
Ambrose says, for self-righteousness. Ever since then, La Bella
Alda haunts the tower."

" Have you ever seen her ? " asked Anna. " I should like to do so."

"Ah, Signorina, God grant you never may, for she only appears to
give warning of the death of a della Rocca ! "

There was a knock at the door. Sofia went to see who it was, and
returned with a letter which she handed to her young mistress.

" From Cordelia ! " cried she ; then she opened it with eager,
trembling fingers. Sofia returned to her sewing, while Anna remained
at the window and read.

" My darling Sister, —

" How I wish I could curl myself up in an envelope like a cater-
pillar in a leaf, make Tista carry me to the post, and wake up with
you at Rocca d'Oro ! How astounded our grand-aunt would be, and
what a lecture upon family dignity I should receive ! But no, that
would never do, and you shall see that my entry into what you call
the old den, shall be of quite a different kind. For my entry there is
decided upon. Her Ladyship has written to mamma about it. She
likes you well enough, but says she could never entrust the family
honours to one so incapable of appreciating them ! The words are
hers. I am sure from your letters that she must be very much nicer
than any of the pictures we used to draw of her. I feel remorseful at
times. I shall enter Rocca d'Oro fully prepared to please her in all I
can, and also to love her, if possible. But only in case you, dearest,
continue to refuse the inheritance. If you try, you can surely undo
the past, and then, I am sure, aunt will adopt you at once. I know
I shall make a much better chatelaine than you, but I will never stand

552 A tint Orsola.

in your way unless you insist upon it. Do as you please, Whatever
may be mine later shall also be yours and dear mamma's. You both
know that.

" When you come back, and you are to come back before I leave
for Ivrea, you will find the dear old place rather shabby. The vines
are in a terrible state, and we shall hardly get a barrel of wine out of
the whole. The disease has never been so bad. Even Alberto's
vines have suffered, in spite of all his care. He has been away for
the last four days, at Genoa, on business I believe. He is pining
terribly after you, darling, comes down after every post to hear if you
have written — wanders about for hours, and seems quite lost. I wish
you could have corresponded, but I suppose mamma was right in for-
bidding it. He knows nothing about your coming back.

" Tista is well, so is Erminia, but she is getting very deaf. I wish
you could have seen their faces when they were told of your return !
They love you much more than they do me, everybody, mamma also
does that though. I neither wonder at it, nor am I jealous. I have
sighed all my life to enter the great world. I am a better della
Rocca than you, dear. Mamma is writing to the Signora Marchesa.
What an odd world this is ! Nobody seems ever to get what he wants !
You almost lament over the number of dresses and things aunt has
given you ; most other girls, I among the number, would go wild with
delight over them. Well, console yourself with the thought that they
will come in nicely for the Signora Alberto.

" There, mamma has finished writing, and Tista is waiting to be
off. So good-bye, and a thousand kisses from your loving sister,

" Cordelia."

On going to her room that evening, Anna read her letter once more
through. They kept early hours at the castle, and not feeling sleepy,
she took her favourite seat at the open window. *Heavy clouds were
billowing up from the horizon and betokened a coming storm. The
rain had ceased, the heat was oppressive. From time to time the
moon shone forth and flung sheets of silvery radiance upon the
dripping woods, now lighting up the tall tower with ghostly gleam, now
hiding as suddenly behind a mass of dark drifting vapour.

Anna gazed across at the ruin with newly awakened interest.
Sofia's legend had taken her fancy. The rush of the stream, now
swollen to a torrent, broke hoarsely upon the otherwise silent night.

Anna gazed forth and shuddered ; she could not have told why,
and had to cast a look round at her well-lit room and its comforts to
reassure herself. The darkness was rapidly thickening w^ithout. It
seemed to her as if a pall had been lowered upon the earth. Then
came the growl of distant thunder. On it rolled, nearer and nearer,
deeper and deeper, till once more it died away among the hills.

A sudden rift in the gloom overhead, and, for a second, the white
light fell full upon the tower. Was she dreaming ? There, upon its

Atcnt Orsola. 553

summit stood a form with outstretched arms ! She sprang to her feet
and gazed out with straining eyes. But impenetrable gloom had once
more wTapped its veil round all.

There she stood, watching with dilated eyes and beating heart. A
blue flash, followed by a roar such as deafened all hearing, and, for a
moment paralysed motion. Brief as was the glare however, it had
revealed to Anna's eyes once more, a figure upon the summit of La
Bella Alda's tower.

Covering her face with her hands, she sank back upon the chair.

At this moment the great bell at the castle gate rang forth in loud
and clanging tones.

VI.

That same day a young man in a light linen travelling suit had left
one of the chief hotels at Ivrea, and, after having carefully inquired
his way, directed his steps towards the castle of Rocca d'Oro. He
was not a Piedmontese, but a " Meridionale," as his accent at once
discovered. But, though the Piedmontese are apt to be somewhat
mistrustful of strangers from Southern Italy, the frank features and
cheery smile of the one in question, impressed all favourably, and no
one hesitated to give him the required directions.

The sky was of a dull grey and the rain was falling, but nothing
seemed to deter the traveller, or make him hesitate in his purpose.
There was a smile of happy expectation on his handsome face, and a
throb of intense longing in his loyal heart.

" If I can only see her for a moment," he murmured to himself,
" even from far, I shall return content. I coi^/d not hold out longer ! "

Then on he strode with renewed energy. His light garments were
quickly drenched, but love and hope carried him on, and in due time
he reached the top of a ridge and saw the castle before him. The
tower of La Bella Alda was but a few paces distant ; he hied thither
for shelter.

Niching himself under a broad, low arch, he began to review his
position. He was forced to confess to himself that he had come upon
something very like a wild goose chase. But no repentance mingled
with the feeling. Of course, Anna could not come out in such w^eather.
The rain had literally drowned all hope of that — but he might see her
at some window — and, for a lover ardent as himself, that was already
much.

So there he sat, gazing with longing, loving eyes at the grim pile
before him that held all he most loved upon earth, and muttering
fragmentary curses upon the pitiless Piedmontese sky overhead. Oh,
for a little of the sunshine from his own sunny South !

He tried to light a cigar, but naturally failed. The matches were
wet, and the next moment the box went flying into the elder-bush
beside him.

VOL. Liv. 2 L

554 Aunt Or sola.

The hours gUded by. Slowly, perhaps, but not sadly. Alberto
had, now and again, seen figures at one or another of the windows,
but no glimpse of Anna had blessed his watchful eyes.

Drowsiness began to creep over him. He caught himself nodding ;
started, gazed more intently than before for a moment, then nodded
again. The picture before him grew hazy and dim — a species of
blurr ; then vacancy. Another half start, his head sank forward, and
he slept.

But strange, bewildering dreams surged up to rob him of rest —
broken images in a never-ending maze. One in particular.

There, at the mouth of the arch, stood Anna, radiant with smiles,
and holding out her hands towards him. He tried to grasp them —
they eluded his touch. Once, twice, thrice ; then at last, after a
violent effort, he succeeded. But it was no longer Anna who stood
before him. It was a maiden with sad blue eyes full of mystic
meaning, and with an aureole of golden hair around her head. He
let fall the hands he had seized, for they had suddenly grown chill as
ice, and their cold pressure thrilled him to the core. She spoke — for
he saw her lips move — but no words reached his ear, strain as he
would. Then she glided from his side to the foot of the shattered
stairs, and pointed upwards. She seemed to be relating something,
but he could not catch her meaning. Her face took an expression of
despair — she raised one hand as if to bid him listen, while, with the
other, she pointed to the glen behind. A cry for help seemed to float
up from the rocks and brushwood below. He turned, and, when he
again sought the maiden's face, he saw her with swift and certain foot
mounting the winding stairs, her golden hair and white robe gleaming
with a light all their own. He was about to follow her when a second
cry reached him.

He started violently, and awoke. So like reality had this last part
of his vision been, that he caught himself listening for a repetition of
the cry, and looking upwards to catch a glimpse of the golden-haired
maiden. But neither repaid his trouble, and, with a little laugh at
his own credulity, he sat down once more.

But his limbs were cramped, and he felt chilled. Want of food
and wet were making themselves felt.

He thought that a little motion would do him good, and so began
to climb the crazy old stairs. He reached the top with little difficulty
and less danger. The lower steps were somewhat broken, but the
higher he got, the better he found them.

Just below the platform was a sort of little chamber — dry and snug
— a perfect palace compared with the niche below in which he had
been cooped. And, best of all, a narrow window gave him a full
view of the castle opposite.

He mounted to the platform to take a survey, keeping carefully
behind the battlements. Then he went back to the chamber below
to resume his watch. Prudence whispered him to return there and

Atcnt Orsola. 555

then to Ivrea, rest, and a hot meal — love urged him to remaui where
he was, and shiver. And love conquered.

Perseverance at last had its reward. Darkness had fallen, and, at
one of the illuminated windows, he recognized Anna.

He sprang upon the platform, and eagerly waved his arms towards
her.

Then the storm broke. And yet, all unheeding, Alberto kept to
his post. Cold, hunger, fatigue, all were forgotten in his exultation as
he stood and gazed.

A momentary lull in the tempest, and, during the brief pause, the
cry that Alberto had heard in his dreams floated up once more. No
fancy this time, however, but the wail of one in agony and peril.

For a moment Alberto listened and hesitated, then, with a final
wave to his beloved, he commenced a descent. Now blinded by the
lightning, now aided by its glare, he made his way down ; clinging
here, groping there, till at last he reached the ground in safety.

As he stepped into the gloom the cry was repeated. Rapidly as he
was able he scrambled down the slope. Wet bows flapped in his face,
clothes and hands were torn and scratched. Yet on he went, till,
thanks to energy, and aided by a gleam or two of faint moonlight,
he reached the spot whence the cry had come. A man lay upon the
ground. Alberto knelt beside him.

" At last, thank God ! "

" Where are you hurt ? "

" My leg, it is broken."

*' Have you been here long ? "

" Hours."

" Do you think you can manage to rise ? "

No reply ; the injured man had fainted. For a moment Alberto
hesitated, but for a moment only. With one more look at the pros-
trate man, he turned and bounded up the slope. The moon had
burst forth white and clear, and he could make his way without
difficulty. From the summit he saw the castle rising grim and grey
before him, and with fleet foot he crossed the narrow valley and made
for the front entrance. There he rang such a peal at the great gate
as flung the inhabitants into no slight commotion.

vn.

Who could ring like that, and at such an hour, in so authoritative
a manner ?

" It must be a Royal messenger," said the Marchioness to Brigitta,
who was aiding her mistress to make a hasty toilette. " His Majesty
is at Turin. No, not that shawl, the other. Or a despatch from the
Ministry concerning my poor murdered nephew. There, let us go
now."

2 L 2

55^ Aunt Ovsola.

The whole household almost had assembled in the great hall, and
varied was the exhibition of toilettes in every stage of progression. On
the Marchioness's entrance one and all drew aside, so that she found
herself in an open space and face to face with a young man whose
eyes were flashing with excitement, and whose dress was in the most
deplorable disorder. Mud-stained, moss-marked, torn in places and
bedraggled in a manner impossible to describe. A more perfect
contrast to a self-sufficient Royal messenger or ministerial emissary
could scarcely be conceived.

The old lady almost started, while a frown gathered above her dark
bright eyes. Alberto's face bore no trace of suffering, had it done so,
the frown would not have appeared ; she saw nothing but a stalwart
and apparently healthy young man, who had invaded her home in
disreputable garments, and at a most impertinent hour. That was
quite enough. But more was to come, and that, too, before any word
of explanation could be either asked or given.

A faint cry broke from the group near the foot of the staircase, and
then Anna rushed forwards, seizing the intruder by the arm and, in
a tone that touched all present, cried, " Mamma — Cordelia, are
they "

" As well as possible," Alberto hastened to say. " It was nothing
about them that brought me here."

" Thank God ! " ejaculated Anna.

" And may I ask what did bring you here, sir, and who you are ? "
demanded the Marchioness, with an ominous ring in her voice and
a yet more expressive drawing up of her slight figure.

In a few hurried but sufficiently clear words, Alberto explained the
situation. Fortunately for him, the old lady never remembered to
ask what had brought him lurking about her residence at such an
undue hour ; had she done so, poor Alberto would have been terribly
put to for a reply. Her frown relaxed at once, and, almost before
Alberto's last word was uttered, she was giving orders with a prompti-
tude and forethought that spoke well for head and heart.

Like many others in this misty world of ours, Orsola della Rocca
was much more sinned against than sinning. She had obstinately
persisted in donning a mantle pieced together with the armorial rags
and remnants of her ancestors and the past, and the world had neither
time nor inclination to lift the folds and discover the good that lay
hidden beneath.

It was nearly an hour before the men, who had at once been
despatched with a stretcher from the castle, returned and deposited
the injured man upon the bed prepared for him. After careful
examination, the doctor declared there to be no immediate danger,
though the fracture of the ankle was serious, and the patient in a very
weak state. He had plainly undergone recent and severe hardship,
for he was terribly emaciated, and pale in spite of sunburn. Every-
thing was done for his relief and comfort, and the doctor and one

Atmt Orsola. 557

of the head servants were to pass the night at his bedside. Bidding
the former send her a report early next morning, the Marchioness
carried Anna off to her own apartments.

The latter passed an uncomfortable quarter of an hour there, poor
girl, for her aunt questioned her closely, with her bright old eyes
relentlessly fixed upon her face, and had no great difficulty in obtain-
ing a tolerably clear insight into the true state of affairs. She made
no remark, however. Only when Anna, upon her dismissal, made a
movement to kiss her grand-aunt's hand as usual, the hand was quietly,
but decidedly, withdrawn, and the customary ^^ Dormez dien, petite^''
surrogated by an icy " Bonne nicit^ Madetnoiselkr Nor could appealing
eyes obtain anything more.

VIII.

None could guess what the morrow^ was about to bring forth.

The sun rose in cloudless glory, the rain-drops glittered like
diamonds on blade and bow, the bees hummed amidst the flowers,
the birds sang from the thickets, the hoarse roar of the rivulet had
once more sunk to a tuneful tinkle. Without the castle all was peace
and repose, within it all was conjecture and excitement.

The adventure of the past night was an event in the lives of the
dwellers therein. To one or two it was about to prove of life
importance.

The patient lay upon his bed. He was better — infinitely better —
for after the skilful setting his leg had become far less painful,
Alberto sat at his side, for he insisted upon having him there.
Rightly enough he regarded Alberto as the saviour of his life. Had he
not found and rescued him, he must certainly have died of exhaustion
and exposure. He felt grateful in consequence.

There was a knock at the door. The doctor went to see who it
was.

" Please, sir, her Ladyship has sent to ask if she can pay a visit to
her sick guest, and at what o'clock."

" Whenever her Ladyship pleases. There is no danger, but I will
ask the patient himself."

He did so, and, while willingly assenting, a strange smile wandered
over his drawn features. He complained of the light hurting his eyes,
and begged them to draw the curtains partially. His desire was at
once complied with, and the large lofty room was wrapped in a semi-
gloom that contrasted strongly with the golden sunshine without.

Alberto rose to go.

'' No, no, don't stir. Please remain just where you are."

" But the Marchioness "

" Never mind the Marchioness. She will be quite content to have
you there. I give you my word for it."

Alberto looked wonderingly at the patient j then resumed his seat.

55^ Aunt Or sola.

Not over willingly, it must be confessed. He had a wholesome dread
of Orsola della Rocca, and, perhaps, not wholly without cause.

A few minutes later the door was opened to its widest width, and
the old lady entered. The patient drew the sheet quite up to his
chin.

With slow, stately, but noiseless step she approached the bed ;
stopped within a yard or so, and then, with a stately bend of the head
but also with a courteous smile said :

"You are welcome to my house, sir. I only regret that an
unhappy accident was the cause that brought you here."

The stranger thanked her. But, in a voice that had suddenly
grown husky.

While he was doing so, his hostess settled herself in the armchair
that Brigitta had wheeled near the bed. Alberto, who had risen and
w^ho was standing there somewhat sheepishly, was struck at seeing
something very like a tear gather in the patient's eyes. " Poor
fellow," he thought, " he must be weak as a girl. But then it was a
deuce of an accident to be sure."

There was a momentary silence. The heavy curtains waved softly
to and fro in the warm summer air, causing uncertain lights and
shadows to play upon all within.

I am happy to learn from the doctor that you are doing well. My
house and all it contains are at your disposal. It was a fortunate
thing that they found you ! "

" Yes, indeed. Had it not been for this fine fellow here," with a
motion of his head towards Alberto, who blushed like a girl, " I should
now be "

" Don't think of it," interrupted the old lady ; " think, rather, of
getting strong once more. It was a bad fracture, the doctor says."

" Yes. I stumbled into a hole covered with moss. I had taken
the short cut across from the town, and "

He stopped. The Marchioness looked at him curiously. She was
too high-bred to ask what had induced him to take a short cut
that led nowhere but to her house. Yet she would very much have
liked to know.

" I was on my way to friends," he added.

" Ah, you have friends in the neighbourhood ? "

" Yes, madam. One, at least. One whom I have not seen for
long, long years. Almost the only relation I have in the world."

The Marchioness continued to gaze at him. Something in his tone
seemed to strike her. There were tears in it, as the French say.

" Would you like your relative to be informed ? To be sent for ? "

" There is no need, thank you. She will know all in good time."

" She ? Your mother, perhaps ? "

" No, Signora, my aunt."

Rapidly the old lady passed in mental review all the famihes
around. None suited the circumstances. Yet her unknown guest

AtLiit Orsola.

559

was evidently a gentleman. Language and voice showed the liighest
breeding ; ears and hands the bluest blood.

She was unpleasantly puzzled. " He must have some reason for
not giving his name. Well, the incognito shall be respected," thought
the old lady.

" How glad your aunt will be when she hears of your escape ! "

" And how grateful to my preserver here." He took Alberto's hand
as he spoke.

" Of course. Yes ; she ought to be grateful indeed ! "

She sighed ; for the thought of how boundlessly grateful she would
have shown herself to anyone that could have saved her poor nephew
from his cruel death. She had scarcely ever seen him since his
boyhood, his mania for travelling and exploration having occupied
his whole life. But his loss had, nevertheless, been a sad trial to her.

" Yes, indeed ; she ought to be grateful," he repeated. " Not
exactly on my own personal account," he laughed, " for I have been a
careless, undutiful dog of a nephew, but because I am the last of my
race, and "

A sudden trembling seized upon the old lady. She looked
piteously into the stranger's face.

" The last of your race, Signore ? The last of your race ? Oh,
then, I — all of us — must be doubly careful of you, for your own sake
< — for you aunt's — for the name you bear "

She paused. Then continued in a lower tone, as if to herself, but
with an accent that went straight to the hearts of her hearers —

" Ah, I, too, had a nephew — the last of my race and name ; he
was hardly ever out of my thoughts, for in him were centred all my
hopes. Lands, honours, all were to have been his ; and I was ever
picturing to myself this old place gladdened by the prattle of his
children, who would carry on the unbroken line of our ancestors.
But it was not to be — it was not to be ; and now "

Her voice failed her.

" And now ? " repeated the stranger, in a low, husky tone, taking
the old lady's passive hand in both his own : " and now ? "

A shriek from old Brigitta made everyone start. There she stood,
clinging convulsively to the back of her mistress's chair, and staring
wildly at the stranger.

A stronger breath of the summer breeze had swelled the swaying
curtains wider apart, and caused the mellow, golden sunshine to flood
the hitherto darkened room.

" It is — it is — oh, my mistress, my darling mistress — it is your
nephew himself — your nephew himself ! "

Orsola della Rocca sprang to her feet, pale as a sheet and with
hands clasped in an agony of doubt and supplication.

" Speak — for mercy's sake, speak ! Who are you ? "

"Aunt — my poor dear aunt, I am your truant nephew, Guido
della Rocca."

560 Aunt Orsola.

She fell on her knees beside the bed. " God be praised — oh, God
be praised ! " she cried. Her head sank upon her nephew's arm, and
her whole frame was shaken by convulsive sobs.

" Aunt, my dear aunt ! "

There was not a dry eye in the room. Alberto fairly wept. He
was learning at his own expense that one does not always need a
" deuce of an accident " to make one " weak as a girl."

Comparative composure being restored, all was simply and briefly
cleared up. After undergoing a long and terrible captivity to one of
the hostile tribes in Central Africa, Guido della Rocca had at last
found means of escape, but only long after a false report of his
massacre had been spread. After incredible hardship he had reached
the coast and procured a passage for Genoa. He had come on thence
without delay ; had got out at a small station, intending to take a
short cut to the castle ; had fallen, and been found by Alberto — all as
simple as extraordinary things generally turn out in the end. Brigitta
had recognised him from having seen him once or twice at his
mother's house during her last long illness and whither she had been
sent by the Marchioness. A romance woven of the most common-
place, everyday facts. Orsola della Rocca sat holding one of her
nephew's hands in hers, almost as if she feared she might lose him
once more.

A sudden remembrance strikes her. She rises, makes the tour of
the huge bed to where Alberto is standing, takes his strong, brown
hands in her slim, delicate ones, and says : " It is thanks to you, under
God's will, that I am to-day the happiest woman in all Italy. Ask
what you will in return — ask without fear — it shall not be refused you."

To this day Alberto Feliciani cannot tell how he ever managed to
do and say it. He declares that the words passed his lips without any
effort of his own. It is easy to guess what he did ask, but impossible
to describe the tone in which his " Grant me the hand of your grand-
niece, O gracious lady ! " \vas uttered, or picture the surprise of all
present on seeing the handsome young giant kneeling at the feet of
the frail, high-born old Marchioness.

She grew deadly pale, then flushed crimson. The struggle was
violent but short.

" Marchese Guido della Rocca" — turning to her nephew — "from
the moment you entered this house you became the head of the
family. It is for you to decide."

" You gave your word, aunt, and a della Rocca cannot retract.
But, all things considered, I think it is best to let Anna herself
decide."

With a cry of joy Alberto sprang to his feet. He knew that at last
the victory was his.

Atmt Or sol a. 561

IX.

A LOVELY September night ; the full moon smiling softly down upon
shimmering sea and olive-clad height ; the air full of balmy odour ;
flowers sleeping with gently drooping heads ; leaves folded in slumber
like hands in prayer ; the idle swish of waters upon the beach ; the
occasional flutter of a bird among the ilex and magnolia. Such the
scene as they all sat there upon the terrace in front of Countess
Altamonte's modest home.

Orsola della Rocca lying back in a low garden-chair ; Ikigitta on a
stool at her feet ; the Countess at her aunt's side ; Anna and Cordelia,
Alberto and Guido, grouped a few paces off; Battista and Erminia in
the background, seated upon the doorstep of the dwelling.

" And you really think your stay here has done you good, dear
aunt ? "

" It has indeed. And I feel so happy, too ! I cannot tell you
how happy ! This last event has crowned all my wishes."

She looked over towards her nephew and Cordelia, who had
wandered on as far as the balustrade, and were standing there, close
together, apparently gazing down at the sea.

" I should like them to marry as soon as possible. Could not
both our dear girls be married on the same day ? "

" Of course they can, aunt, if you wish it, and if "

" I do wish it with all my heart. I have got all business matters
done, so that there is no hindrance."

" Dear aunt, I don't know how to thank you for your liberality to
my daughters and myself. Thanks to you, we "

" Thank me then by never speaking about it. I don't know how I
could have been so unmindful of you all these long years. AVorse
than unmindful — it was cruel ; cruel in the extreme."

" My dear aunt, don't distress yourself "

" Can you forgive me ? "

Countess Altamonte took her aunt's hand in hers, and pressed it
tenderly in reply.

The Marchioness lay back with closed eyes, murmuring softly to
herself, " Cruel — cruel, indeed ! "

The white moonlight fell full upon her, softly illuminating her calm
Vv-ell-cut features, and her frail, clasped fingers with their glittering rings.

" Yes, dear," she continued after a pause, " my whole life has been
a fooHsh mistake — I see it all now\ But, God be thanked, the
awakening has come. Late, very late, but still it has come. I have
never known until now what real happiness meant. Pray God to
prolong my days, that I may yet further atone for the past."

A prayer that seems as if it would be granted ; for Aunt Orsola
grows younger every day; and whenever they all meet, which is
often, a happier gathering does not exist in the whole of sunny Italy.

A. Beresford.

562

BY CHANCE.

nPHE day was fast declining, and a cool breeze from the hills was
■^ sweeping over the drowsy little Devonshire village, as the two
equestrians, who were filling up an idle summer in scouring the
wildest and most romantic parts of the West Country, slackened rein,
and looked about for a possible night's lodging. They were men of
some thirty years or so, with all the world-worn marks that show
themselves, or are assumed, so conspicuously at that age.

Graduated together at Balliol, Oxford, they had both dropped into
easy fortunes, and settled in the same chambers in London to run
their luck in the literary world.

Society had been electrified from time to time by daring articles in
the periodicals of unconventional odour, and brilliant spirited \ntti-
cisms ; whilst the philosophic world had welcomed the subtle reason-
ing and amazing power of language that fell from another unknown
pen. And the two men were as unlike in character and physique as
they were in mind and taste. Jack Derwent was strongly and
gracefully built, and endowed with all the fascinations of the correctly
handsome face.

But Jack knew, with all his sparkling bo7ihomie and good looks, he
had never learnt the secret magnetism that drew the women of
deeper soul to prefer the society and eccentric visage of his friend.
Cope's face denoted all the mental strength and force of the man ; by
far too expressive, too shadowed and lined with thought, to give one
any distinct idea of what the mere features were, but a face unmis-
takably indicative of keen intellectual power and great-hearted
sympathies. A face that one trusted instinctively or shrank from in
nervous fascination, ^\^lat his personal magnetism was, no one had
ever defined, but all recognised its living influence. In every circle
of society he was always the central attraction, and yet his almost
aggravating modesty and lack of self-esteem had thwarted, and were
likely to thwart, all his friend's ambitious ideas for him.

In spite of a delicate constitution, he could rise to all his com-
panion's enjoyment of life, and had expressed his delight in the rich
beauty of the country through which they were riding by many a
poetic outburst, which the effete Jack had attempted to crush.

" Don't you think," cried the latter, " that looks a possible place ? ''
pointing to a farm at the end of the deep, red lane.

" Yes," Earle replied ; " I already embrace the cider."

" And the pretty farmer's daughter ! " and Jack pointed with his
whip through the trees to their right, to a small figure dressed in
rough serge and a coloured kerchief, driving home the cattle.

" No, I am weary of women, and agree with the sage old Father of

By Chance. 563

the church, who denounced them as, ' a necessary evil, a natural
temptation, a desirable calamity, a deadly fascination, and a
painted ill.' "

Jack laughed. " Not much paint about a farmer's daughter.
Hallo ! my lass, can you tell us if we can get a night's lodging
anywhere about here ? "

They had overtaken the girl and the cattle, but Jack's familiarity
met with no response ; she walked slowly on without apparently the
least idea she had been addressed, and there was something strangely
dignified in the girl's walk, and the imperious pose of her head
beneath the kerchief. The men glanced at each other, and Earle
sprang to the ground and reached her side.

" Would you oblige us " — he began, and she turned and faced him.
For a moment he was taken aback by the beauty of the woman, and
the innate refinement of her whole mien.

" Yes ? " she asked, scanning his face with a fearless smile. " What
is it you want ? "

" A night's lodging," he answered. " Perhaps you would kindly
direct us."

" We can take you in at the farm if you will ride on. That is the
entrance."

She returned his bow with proud indifference and fell back.

" By Jove ! " Jack exclaimed. " What magnificent eyes ! and what
a voice ! "

" Yes," said Earle ; " I have forgotten my thirst."

They found a ready accommodation, and the hearty farmer de-
lighted to welcome them.

" I'm glad for my daughter," he said, rubbing his hands and
eyeing the horses as a lad unstrapped the knapsacks from the saddles
and led them away. " I'm always glad for my daughter when a
scholar turns up. She's like her mother, and the old lady before
her, fond of a bit of learning. Where will ye like to sup ? It's cool
in the porch here."

Later on he came and suggested a walk round the place before it
was too dark, for there were various points of traditional interest
connected with it. Jack readily accepted, but Earle pleaded fatigue,
and preferred to smoke in the porch.

" Bertha," the farmer called to his daughter, " bring the gentleman
that paper Squire Godwin left last week."

" My father has no idea news a week old is slightly uninteresting,"
she said, as she brought it with a smile. "This is the Saturday
Review, and a very poor number."

" You are a reader yourself? " Earle could not resist asking.

" I read everything that comes in my way," she answered. " But
I am interrupting your smoke."

She passed down the path, and he quickly followed and opened
the gate. A red glow of sunlight flashed upon her as she smiled

564 By Chance.

to thank him, and he wondered if he had ever seen so beautiful
a woman.

Jack came back limping, supporting himself on the farmer's arm.

" Sprained my ankle, confound it ! " he explained, and the farmer
entered on a long tirade against the learning that took away all a
man's common-sense ; and Earle never quite grasped how it had
happened. Bertha came quickly to the fore, and showed a remark-
able skill in binding.

" It is not very severe," she said ; " but you will have to keep your
foot up, and must prolong your stay for a few days, which I hope
will not be a great inconvenience to you ? "

" It is a happy necessity," he answered quickly.

" The couch in my sitting-room is the most comfortable, father,"
she said, " and these gentlemen shall with pleasure occupy the room."

They both protested, and only gave in when she promised that it
should not banish her or her father. Earle approached it with
curiosity. There is always so much that is characteristic in the
arrangement of a room, and how would this woman with her stately
mien and white hands have described her tastes ? He certainly did
not expect quite the charm of the artistic touches he found. It was
all so simple, but so perfect in harmony of colouring, so graceful in its
poverty. The little oak bookcase held her few treasures ; the walls
were bare except for one or two water-colour sketches and a portrait
in oils. Of herself?

Jack's eyes asked the question as he glanced from it to her own
face, and saw the strong Hkeness.

" No," she smiled, " every one makes that mistake. It was an
ancestor of mine on my mother's side, who died very tragically —
curiously enough in this very house."

" May we know the tragedy ? "

Jack sank back on the couch and she raised the pillows for him.

" Oh, it is very little I can tell you ; you shall see the room before
you go, if you like," she said dropping her voice. " My father cannot
bear the subject mentioned, and has fallen into the old superstition of
allowing nothing to be touched."

"Is it the room above that queer wooden staircase at the north
end ? " Jack asked.

" Yes ; you noticed it ? The farm in those days was the old Manor
House, and this girl, the daughter of the house, had the misfortune to
be beautiful without realising the misfortune. One Christmas Eve a
ball was given in the neighbourhood, and there she met her fate. It
is supposed her lover, mad with love and jealousy, followed her home
and surprised her in her room as she was undressing. She was found
in the morning stabbed, her ball-dress flung on the bed, and the man's
sword lying on the floor in a pool of blood. The dress and sword
have never been removed, they are lying there still."

" But the man ? "

By Chance. 565

" No one ever traced him, or, as far as I can make out, attempted
to do so ! "

" It would have been easy enough," Jack cried excitedly ; " the
man's sword would most likely have betrayed him — it probably bears
his crest."

" Which rust has slightly obliterated. But you shall sec it."

It was a promise he was eager should be fulfilled, but the oppor-
tunity was slow in coming, as it was necessary the farmer should be
out of the way. But the time passed pleasantly enough for the two
men, who delighted in the companionship of this intellectual, self-
cultured woman.

" I wonder," Jack said once, when he had watched her pass the
window in her dark green habit — " I wonder if she would be as
beautiful under other circumstances ? "

Earle looked up from his book with a quick, scrutinising glance.

" I doubt if she would be as happy."

" That is begging the question ; but what do you mean ? "

" Throw such a woman into a greater intensity of life, where all
her powers would be called into play, and she would suffer acutely."

" But beautifully ! One would be careful to surround her with all
the refinements of beauty that would appeal to her sensibilities.
Here her spirit must be for ever unsatisfied."

" I think not. Goethe says ' no circumstance is unpoetic to the
poet,' and I think she fulfils that. But to go back to your first
question. Such a woman must always be beautiful, anywhere, every-
where, and she must create beauty wherever she breathes."

" My dear fellow, your enthusiasm will be the ruin of you ! And
I am not sure you are right. She is the genius of this place, because
all surrounding beauty falls short of her, and because she strikes the
one harmonic note. But picture her in a higher idealic atmosphere,
take her from her isolation "

" You can't ! She must for ever be isolated — the one distinctive,
not harmonic, note — the one ideal that has fulfilled itself."

He walked to the window, and pushed aside the curtain to gain a
wider view. " This place is a dream of beauty. But why should we
stay any longer ? Your foot's all right."

"What a restive animal man is ! I don't intend to go till I have
seen the mystic chamber."

" My dear boy ! A few rags and cobwebs. Besides, Miss Lane
told me this morning there would be a brilliant opportunity whilst her
father was at market this evening."

They made the investigation, and Jack was intrusted with the
sword to make any discoveries he could. He took it to his ov/n
room, and Earle followed his hostess back to the house. But both
paused in the porch, and turned to watch the late sun reddening the
deep-shadowed lane at their feet.

" Mr. Derwent declares sunsets are out of date — vulgarised ! How

566 By Chance.

amusing he is with his effete indifference ! " she said, glancing with
her beautiful smile into Earle's face.

"It is a borrowed cynicism that he certainly amusingly assumes,"
Earle laughed. " But London is sated with these ideas ; and all life
becomes shallow and unreal when they are indulged."

" Are you not a little cynical yourself? "

" What makes you say that? " he asked quickly.

" I am never altogether sure whether you are laughing at me or
not," she said, a little nervously.

" Laughing at you ! I should be denying the grandest hope of
my life."

" What have I to do with that ? " The smile of an undefined
surprise parted her lips, and her eyes darkened.

Earle caught her hands, and held them fiercely in his own.

" I mean you have taught me — you are teaching me — that there
is an immeasurable, inexhaustible attainment, beyond the buried facts
of life ; or else one's soul has been awaked in vain, and the glimpse
of heaven the cruellest of all illusions."

She took her hands gently away, and turned from him.

" You are in a strange, impressionable mood. I don't quite under-
stand you. But it is only a passing emotion, and when you have
returned to your own surroundings, you will forget this moment."

" Bertha ! "

" Hush ! — not you — not you ! " and she covered her face with her
hands. Then with an effort, she came close to him, and laid her
hand on his shoulder.

" You have stayed too long — stayed until the great pulses of life
are drugged with false illusions. Go back ! Go back to reality, and
leave the thought of me here. I — oh ! I am no friend — no possible
worth to such as you ! "

Again he took possession of her hands, and his lips were very white.

" You have no trust in me ? No — why should you ? Men have
told you — I know there was never a man who crossed your threshold
but has told you — you are beautiful, and he loves you. I tell you
neither ; such expressions are commonplace, insulting. I only tell
you, by some wonderful fatality, my soul has been drawn into touch
with a greater soul ; and the only response of my being lies in you.
I only tell you the life of glory, for a few blissful weeks, has been
revealed to me — revealed in your eyes, your smile — and when its
memory dies, I shall be worse than dead."

He bent over her, his breath fanned her brow, and she heard the
beating of his heart.

For one instant she trembled, and a great sob rose in her bosom ;
and then she said :

" No man has so honoured me. But I will not, I dare not listen
to you. The world lies at your feet ; you are born for greatness. And it
shall not be lost, sacrificed for a passing fancy for a farmer's daughter ! "

By Chance. 567

She bowed her proud, lovely head beneath his gaze, and walked
past him into the house.

The sword was still undergoing its scouring and polishing when
Earle came in an hour later, and Jack was far too eager to notice any
change on his friend's face, but he was a little irritated with Earle's
renewed persistence on leaving the following day.

" I was just making up my mind to stay here all the autumn,"
he said.

" What, and give up Switzerland and Lady Grace ? "

Jack reddened. " Ah ! there is beauty personified," he sighed ;
*' or conventionalised ? "

" You are a Philistine, Earle ! there is not the smallest hope for
you. Hallo ! by George ! "

" Eureka ? "

" Yes, but look at that ! Atif vincere aut moriP

Earle stared and took the sword from Derwent's hand.

"It is what you supposed," he said after a careful examination.
"It is my own crest, and I am the descendant of a murderer ; a

murderer of " He stopped, and the sword dropped to the ground.

Bertha was in the room.

" I have come for it," she cried ; " it must be returned. I — I
heard what you said — your crest ! "

Earle picked it up and gave it to her, laughing bitterly.

" A beautiful inheritance to have dropped upon, is it not ? A
complete and irreversible answer to all my pleading," he added below
his breath, and his eyes burnt her with their fierce light.

" I cannot see what you have proved," Jack cried ; the whole truth
of the scene flashing startlingly upon him.

'■''Everything ! There are initials — my own, too, by another strange
coincidence — E. C."

" But what has a jealous mania to do with you ? "

" I bear the stain on my name. An hour ago, this lady did me
the honour to listen to my addresses. I make her now the sincerest
apology, and I vv^ill not intrude another night under her roof. May I
order my horse, madam ? "

The graceful courtesy of this man touched her deeply. She put
the sword from her as if it had pierced her, and looked in his face
with her eyes full of tears.

" If you put yourself to this inconvenience, you will pain me
greatly. Please stay as long as you intended, and grant me a few
words before you leave. I am a little overwrought, I will not see you
again to-night."

She held out her hand to Jack, and he saw the tears were streaming
down her cheeks.

"Thank you," was all Earle said, and he did not see her face.

The dews were heavy on the green fields the next morning when he
waited to bid her good-bye. Jack had agreed to follow him later in

568 By Chance.

the day. And he was standing now, one hand on his bridle, looking
up the lane for the flutter of the white gown, and the breeze stirring
the dark hair of the proud bare head that he should never see again.

She came at last, pale in her beauty and majestic in her pain.

" You were kind to grant me this," she said, and she took the red
rose, all wet with dew, from her breast, and held it up to him.

" Wear it to-day," she said, " for my sake, and know that I shall
ever think of you apart from all other men ; that I cannot connect you
with any incident of the past, and that if you would leave me without
one bitter thought, you will wipe this story from your memory now
and for ever."

" Bertha, you are noble and generous ! I dare not accept your
words, but one question I will, I must ask you. Has my coming here
brought you any pain ? "

"It is a pain that is beautiful," she answered, unconsciously
rendering Jack Derwent's ideal for her. " No one could come into
contact ^vith you and feel quite the same again, and I — I "

" What ? " he whispered ; but he had read the passion of love in
her eyes, and he had folded her closely to his breast.

" Bertha, is it true ? I would have waited for you for ever ; but I
will not go away to-day, my love ; nor ever, without you."

Lilian Street.

DISILLUSION.

Wide was the world in days gone by,
High towered its summits to the sky ;
And far away went sea and shore
Winding and gleaming evermore :
Now rounded by a span might be
The low and little sphere I see.

Fair was the world in days of old.
Through silver mist and haze of gold
I saw the gloom, I saw the glow,
Wliich morn and only morn can show :
On flowerless field and leafless way,
Nor cloud nor colour steals to-day.

!My feet went lightly to the strain

Of happy birds, whose glad refrain

Was : " Onward, onward, perfect bliss

Awaits to crown thee with her kiss."

Now softer fall their accents clear :

" She comes, she comes : but never here ! "

AP

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